Reflections
by azriona
Summary: Five years after the Doctor left Rose on Pete's World, Mickey Smith sends her to investigate a blue box humming in the basement of Torchwood Tower. No one saw what happened next...Part One of the Crossroads series. NO SEASON 4 SPOILERS, I promise!
1. Humming

_**Warning:** None, actually - there are _**no spoilers for Season 4**_ anywhere in this story. It's canon all the way up to the end of Season 3 of New Who ("Last of the Time Lords"). You may read without fear.  
_

_**Disclaimer:** Not mine. It's very sad, I agree. If it looks familiar, it's because it's also on LJ and Teaspoon.  
__**Chapter Summary:** There is an odd blue box humming, and it's up to Rose Tyler to investigate. There is an odd blue box humming, and the Doctor thinks he knows what to do with it._

**Chapter 1: Humming**

It should have been impossible, but impossible for Earth and impossible for Gallifrey were two entirely different concepts. Impossible for Earth to time-travel; impossible for Gallifrey to not.

So _impossible_ was really just a matter of where you happened to be in the world. At this moment, he was in the one place where retrieving Rose was suddenly not impossible. In a single moment, a single place, a single fraction of a heartbeat, he'd have Rose standing nearby, touchable, unforgettable, and without a doubt, very, very, very angry, with him, specifically.

He didn't know if it would work. He didn't know if she'd even survive it. He'd never heard of anyone having done what he was about to do. He'd only seen the device sitting in front of him twice before in his entire life; he barely knew what it was. It could very easily result in two worlds collapsing into specks of dust.

He decided he didn't care, and did it anyway.

* * *

It should have been a good day, but good days for Rose and good days for Mickey were two entirely different concepts. Mickey's good days involved little or no reference to the life he'd left behind in their original dimension; Rose's best days were filled with them.

The day had started out well for Rose: she'd woken up, just herself and her mum in the house. Pete and the twins had gone off on some over-night school trip, something of a rarity. It wasn't that she didn't like Pete – she did, really – but when he was around, he usually served as a reminder that life was different. The same for the twins – as much as Rose loved them, as much as she knew they loved her, it was odd, having siblings, hearing her parents answer to other voices calling Mum and Dad.

But today was a good day: today Rose saw Jackie only briefly before racing out the door, the two of them shouting reminders at each other, and Rose hopped onto the nearest bus and within minutes was being whisked away to the center of the city, where the central Henrik's still sat, impervious, on its corner across from the Oxford Street John Lewis. Rose didn't go in but let her eyes feast upon it as the bus turned to speed towards Picadilly's bright lights.

A good day; the person clinging to the railing was listening to their iPod too loudly. Rose could just make out the Beatles' "Across the Universe". Someone nearby was unpeeling a banana. And two rows in front sat a ginger-haired man with a black leather jacket.

Rose closed her eyes, inhaled, and let a smile tug at her lips. Two years ago, this might have made her run screaming from the bus, the assault of memories too much for her to bear. Now the reminders around her were overwhelming just by the fact they existed, and for some odd reason, they gave her hope.

Hope for what, she wasn't certain. But it was with a heavy heart that she disembarked when the bus reached the Thames, and she began the final part of her walk towards Canary Wharf and Torchwood Tower. She would rather have stayed on the bus, in hopes that a man wearing pinstripes would board and complete the picture.

Instead, she saw a man wearing pinstripes as she entered the offices, but it didn't give her any sort of hopeful joy. The pinstriped man was Mickey Smith, hunched over a desk and scowling. Mickey always scowled when he wore the pinstripes, which was just as well, because he didn't look that good in them. Rose tried to close the door softly, but it slipped from her fingers and slammed. Mickey refocused his scowl onto her.

"You're late," he snapped.

"Bus," she said. "Run out of laundry again?"

"Huh?"

"Pinstripes," she said, surprised how calm her voice sounded. "You only wear them when there's nothing else."

"You can comment on my choice of clothing, or you can get on with it," said Mickey, his scowl not improving. "It's started to hum again."

Rose frowned. "Again?"

"Don't forget to wear the safety suit. Here's the results from last night's scans – and shut the door on the way out, would you?"

Rose took the envelope with the test results and pulled them out to scan them. "This doesn't make sense."

"I know," he said irritably.

"It's been sitting there for five years, and it starts humming for no apparent reason four years ago, then stops, starts up a week ago and then stops – and now it's humming again?"

"Broken record, you are."

"You looked at these, right?"

"Sodding things gave me a paper cut. That's my blood on the edge there."

Rose bit her lip. "Only…humming?"

Mickey looked up, the exasperation on his face waning just a little. "Yes, humming. Why?"

"Just…I don't know. A blue box humming in the basement on top of a few other things today…."

Mickey frowned, instantly getting it. "Pinstripes."

"Yeah."

"Impossible, Rose."

"I know. But…humming."

"Look, I'll send someone else to do it—"

Rose snorted. "Fat lot of good that would do – you and I are the only ones who can see it properly. Everyone else who looks at it just sees a odd fog of air hanging about. It's either you or me, Mickey, there's no one else who _can_ do it."

"You get like this every time," said Mickey, most of the exasperation replaced with something more akin to concern. "You hear a song or you see a picture and you get this weird faraway vibe, Rose. It's _impossible_, Rose. You've got to let it go."

"Easy for you to say – you didn't leave anything behind when you decided to stay here," countered Rose.

"And neither did you."

"I didn't get to decide."

"You always said the Doctor wanted what was best for you, and he wanted you here. That's why he sent you in the first place, before you decided to take matters into your own hands and go back, and it nearly got you killed, the way Pete tells it. If Pete hadn't taken a chance to go back for you – you would have _died_, Rose. Can't you trust the Doctor that this _is_ what's best?"

Despite all the reminders, Rose hadn't even allowed herself to think his name all morning, and hearing it from Mickey gave her something of a jolt. Worse, she knew that Mickey saw her reaction, because the self-righteous smirk he'd learned in the five years since Bad Wolf Bay spread across his face. Not only did Mickey think he was _right_, he knew she knew it, too.

"Yeah," said Rose slowly, hating that smirk. "Mickey? Thanks."

He didn't answer, and Rose couldn't help but think he should have. She shut Mickey's door when she left the office and walked down the hall. She stared straight ahead of her as the lift descended into the catacombs beneath the tower, determined to keep Mickey's words at bay, and almost breathed a sigh of relief when the lift came to a stop. She exited onto a long, sterile hallway, at the end of which was a single bolted door, marked only with a small nameplate reading "Room Negative 27". The keys were in her pocket, and she fished them out.

"Here we go," she said to no one in particular, and opened the door. The room was empty save for a small blue box no more than half a meter high sitting in the center of the room. It was perfectly square with rounded edges and resembled a bright blue gelatin mold. A distinctive, low-pitched, steady and altogether too-familiar hum filled the room, and only grew louder as Rose walked up to the box and crouched next to it. She'd seen the box often enough, when it was both quiet and when it hummed, but she'd never really felt such an urge to be so close to it as she did now. It ought to have made her uneasy, she knew – but it didn't.

Rose pulled the test results out again and studied them. The results were on a single page, marred only by the drops of Mickey's blood in the corner. They were the oddest results she'd seen in her life, contradictory at every turn and completely useless. Composition: unknown, organic. Age: unknown, circa five trillion years. Origin, density, mass, weight: unknown, unknown, unknown.

"A great big unknown, is what you are," she said softly. "All shoved in a little blue box. And today, of all days, you decide to hum."

She frowned, looking at the box, and without thinking, reached out to touch it. It was only as her fingers reached the surface that she realized she'd entirely forgotten about Mickey's warning to put on the safety suit, which would have covered her hands. But it was too late – her skin made contact, and for a moment, she could feel the hard, smooth, strangely warm surface, and just as she'd begun to pull away, the box gave way and her hand slipped neatly inside, as if she'd pushed into a blue custard.

Surprising, a little alarming, and rather sticky. But the reason she began to scream was because something inside the box took hold of her hand – and _pulled_. Without warning, Rose's good day became impossibly familiar, and her entire world went blue.

* * *

"Rose…Rose, I know you're awake now. Rose, open your eyes."

"Blue," muttered Rose. It was the only thing she remembered, the color and smell and taste of it. Her mouth was filled with blue cotton candy, she'd been swathed in blue fabric, her nose was filled with sickeningly sweet-and-sour blue perfume. Her head pounded, her muscles ached, and her chest felt as if something wasn't quite right. Her fingers felt vaguely sticky, as if they'd been coated in gel and hastily washed with a damp towel. She was lying on a cushion of some sort, with a light blanket over her – both of which she had no doubt were blue – and she could _feel_ someone hovering over her. He laughed, a little, just a little, and she felt a hand in hers.

"That's right! Open your eyes, Rose, that's my girl. It's not so hard! For me, Rose, come on, now."

He was right, but it hurt anyway, eyelashes glued together by the blue goo she'd been pulled through, by a hand that felt too familiar…a hand that held her own, tightening around it every time she moved. She opened her eyes, and when she saw the man standing there next to the cushion, screamed. Again.

"Rose! No, no, stop, it's okay!" He reached for her shoulders but she was quicker and moved away, only to find herself falling off the cushion – which was really a very thick blanket on the floor.

"YOU…THAT…BLUE...YOU…_impossible!_" she shrieked. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt; she felt light-headed and ill. There were remnants of blue hanging to her skin and clothes, like custard. And yet, there he crouched, familiar and vulnerable, and Rose wondered if she'd stumbled into a nightmare.

He knelt next to the blankets, looking so much like himself, hair mussed, brown pinstripe suit slightly rumpled, tie askew – and white trainers without a doubt tucked underneath – that the grin on his face didn't seem the least bit incongruous, especially considering her frantic fury.

"Oi," he said cheerily. "Who said impossible?"

"YOU DID, YOU GREAT BLOODY STUPID TIME LORD!"

"Did I?" He frowned, thought, and then grinned again. "Yeah, been wrong before. Probably will be wrong again. Pretty sure I'm sitting here, though—" He pinched his arm and jumped. "Yep, hundred percent here. And you – your head's hurting you, I imagine, so you've got to be here too. That can't be impossible, can it, if we're both still sitting here?"

Rose stared at him. He was certainly _talking_ enough. But…. "It's a dream. You're a dream. I've hit my head."

"If it were a dream, what would I do next?"

Rose blushed. Hard.

He blushed. Harder.

"Where am I?" asked Rose, trying to change the subject.

"Tardis console room. Grating," said the Doctor, knocking the grated floor helpfully.

"If this were a dream," said Rose slowly, "you would have pulled me somewhere a lot more comfortable."

"Yeah, well…."

"But that means – it's not a dream."

And with that, she launched herself across the blue blanket that separated them, and for the first time in five years, felt the Doctor's arms wrap around her, and his head rest next to hers.

* * *

Mickey Smith was not having a good day. The only clean trousers in his closet were pinstripes. The only fruit in the cafeteria had been bananas. There had been an ungodly number of people wearing leather jackets in the lift. As if this wasn't enough, the blue box in Room Negative 27 was still humming. If it had been doing that whoosh-whoosh sound he remembered, he might have destroyed the thing, protocols be damned, but worse, it had somehow _sucked_ Rose Tyler into it, leaving no trace of her behind.

Literally, no trace, as in having never existed.

"Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about," the guard was saying to him. "There wasn't anyone down here this morning."

"I sent Rose Tyler myself, sergeant—"

"Who?"

"You of all people, sergeant, ought to remember, you only dated her for three months last year," snapped Mickey, and then sighed, rubbing his temples.

"I've never met anyone named Rose Tyler, sir," said the sergeant.

For some reason, the answer didn't surprise him. "Never mind. I've got a headache. That stupid humming—"

"Humming, sir?"

"Yes, humming, from the box, can't you hear it?"

"There's no humming from this room, sir," said the sergeant slowly. "And no box, neither, just a sort of a blue fog there in the center."

Mickey looked at the sergeant, and then looked back at the box. If a box could be said to hum happily, then that description certainly fit.

"Must be the headache," said Mickey irritably. "Where are the test results on this thing? The ones run last night?"

"Test results?"

"Yes, test results, we ran tests on it yesterday!"

The man shook his head. "Sir…no one's come in here for five years, except for you. _I've_ never even been in here. If anyone ran tests on this contraption, it was five years ago when you first found it and moved it down here."

Mickey blinked. "And Rose Tyler, sergeant. I moved it with Rose Tyler."

The sergeant clearly did not believe him, but wasn't about to argue. "Sir."

"Right," said Mickey, somewhat dazed "Well, in that case, I have an errand to run. Hold down the fort, sergeant. Lock this door and don't let anyone in this room until I return."

"Yes, sir."

Mickey didn't bother to watch the door lock, although he reflected that he ought to have done. In truth, he didn't much care. He was certain – _positive_ – that there was something very wrong going on. No matter what the sergeant said, Rose had been with him when he had found the box, in the aftermath of Canary Wharf. He remembered it clear as day, along with the intervening years, just as he remembered ordering testing on the blue box the day before, and handing those results to Rose that morning. He remembered the way Rose had acted so strangely before she'd gone, and the way his headache had come on so fast at the same time that the lights had flickered twenty minutes before.

He could have sworn the day had been bright and clear that morning, and now low clouds hung over London, the sign of a storm front moving in.

All of a sudden, Mickey had a powerful urge to call Jackie Tyler. Just to see. Just to check. Just to make sure that Jackie Tyler existed at all.

* * *

"Explain it again."

"I've explained three times—"

"I know, but explain it again, this time in English."

"I _am_ explaining in English."

Rose waited, and after an extended sigh, he started. "Every time you make a decision where there is the possibility of a substantially different outcome, it results in a parallel world. For every decision made, there's a focal point – like a crossroads, a place where two roads diverge."

"Like the poem," said Rose.

"Yes! Like the poem. You on one road, me on the other. The blue box is a crossroads. It reflects the two possibilities – a world with you, and a world without you."

"But – did you reverse the decision?"

"No, no one can do that. I don't think it was my decision that caused the crossroads. I've had time to think about it, Rose, I think it was Pete. When he decided to come back for you, and took you to the other world – well, he was saving your life. You would have died in the Void if he hadn't done it, so he saved you. A world with you. A world without you."

"But you said there's thousands of parallel worlds – why isn't the world overrun with these boxes?"

"It probably is, but I've only seen them three times in my life."

Rose rubbed her temples. "It makes my head hurt. That was you, pulling me through?"

"Yep," he said, a hint of pride.

She thought for a moment. "A bit like…oh, I can't put my finger on it. It coated me all over, didn't it, that custard? I feel like there's something of a film on my skin, sticky almost."

"I washed off as much as I could, you were dripping with it. I don't think I did a very good job, but I was more worried about the—" He cut himself off quickly. "No matter, you can go take a shower if you want, plenty of hot water, wash yourself off better than I could do with a damp towel in here."

"But how did you know it was me?"

He laughed. "Think I don't recognize that hand? I'd know it anywhere."

"A portal between there and here—" Rose's eyes brightened. "I'm here."

"You're here," he said happily.

"I'm really here?"

"Really here," he confirmed, the happiness overflowing. "My Rose!" And he took her hand, squeezing it.

"Doctor! You did it! Oh, this is brilliant!"

"Brilliant," he agreed.

"My clever Doctor!"

"Clever me!"

"A portal between there and here – I can't wait to tell Mum—"

There was a pause, a brief tiny one, so short Rose didn't even notice. "Ah – Jackie?"

"Do you know, there's no Selfridges in that world? Finally Mum has money to burn and nowhere to spend it! And Liberty's is just a shoe shop! Mum would love to pop back and forth and do a little shopping."

"Plenty of time for details later," he said, jumping up to his feet. "You must be wanting a shower…."

"What's the point, if I'm going through blue custard again to tell Mum the good news?" laughed Rose.

"Ah, Rose, we've got all the time in the world – what would you like to do first?"

"I like now," she said, and then looked around the control room. "Wait. If the box is a reflection, then it's here too. Where is it?"

"Couldn't go bringing it into the Tardis, could I? Strange blue humming thing like that, might have blown us both to kingdom come and where would we be?"

"But – I wanted to see it."

The Doctor paused. "Maybe a shower first…."

Rose stood up. "What are you hiding? Why can't I go to the blue box?"

"Yes, a shower would put you back to sorts, wash the rest of that custard as you call it off, hot steam push that headache away—"

"Doctor!" Rose felt like screaming again. "Why won't you answer the question?"

The Doctor looked at her, straight into her eyes, and that hard bit came in again, the way it always did when he told her something she didn't particularly want but needed to hear. "I can take you back to where I found the crossroads, Rose, but I can't guarantee it will still be there. I found it in Canary Wharf, in the ruins of Torchwood Tower, and a minute after you appeared, coated in blue and slipping into a coma, the tower began to collapse. That was four days ago. I'm sorry, Rose, but the crossroads is gone."


	2. Pinstripes

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ Rose has disappeared, and Mickey might be losing his mind. Or perhaps Rose is losing her mind, and for some reason, there are pinstripes..._

* * *

**Chapter 2: Pinstripes**

There were any number of reasons to be angry with the Doctor, and Rose took advantage of the never-ending supply of hot water while she organized them into clear priorities. Showers were excellent ways of cataloging such things, and the Tardis had never once run out of hot water.

Rose wasn't sure it was the main reason she was angry with the Doctor, but the very fact that the last words she had said to her mother were, "And I'm not having squid for dinner," were not making her feel better about the possibility of never seeing her mum again. This, of course, was probably an addendum to the fact that she wasn't going to see her mum again, which of course was worthy of a very high ranking on the list of Why Rose Will Never Forgive the Doctor.

So, Reason One: Will never see Mum again.

(Reason One A: Last words said to Mum not "I love you." Goodness, she'd managed that with _him_, Mum really would be put out. And never mind that she'd once before made a choice to never see her Mum again. It was a _completely_ different situation.)

She scrubbed at the blue film on her skin as she pondered the next reason. Her skin wasn't stained blue, at least, but the sticky residue wasn't coming off very easily. Only now could she close her fingers and open them again without feeling as if the skin glued itself together, but the rest of it was proving to be somewhat troublesome, especially in her hair. If she had to cut off her hair….

Reason Two: Stupid blue gunk not coming out of hair; will have to cut it.

It was a little, she reflected, as if she'd been born again, and the blue custard was all that mucus and blood and whatever it was that speeds your passage down the birth canal. Rose wondered how long she'd been in the blue custard – he said she'd been out for four days, laying on the metal grating in the control room. No wonder the blue gunk wasn't coming off easily. No wonder her muscles ached, either. Her entire body felt heavy, but jittery, like she had quicksilver coursing through her veins. Four days and he couldn't have moved her to a _bed_?

Reason Three: Made me wake up in the control room. Idiot.

Rose glanced down at the water streaming off of her – it was less blue than it had been when she started. That was a good sign, at least. She might have to strike Reason Two from the list, and strangely the idea made her feel a bit better. One less reason to hate him was…well, one less reason to hate him, and Rose felt happier about that.

Of course, Reason One was about as big as you could get, but he didn't say it was _impossible_ to get to her mother, just that the blue box was buried in the rubble of Torchwood Tower. They could find it, after a bit of excavation.

And…then what?

Rose stopped, hands in her lathered hair, and thought for a moment. If she found the crossroads again – if she went through it to find her mum – that would mean leaving the Doctor, wouldn't it? Again?

Something in Rose's heart went _thud_, and Rose stilled. It wasn't that she _hated_ the other world. She had a place there, a job, a life carved out of five years which wasn't altogether bad. And Mum was there, and chances were fairly good that Mum wouldn't want to leave it, because Mum had Pete and the twins.

Besides, what sort of life would Rose have had with the Doctor, anyway? Travel, danger, being attacked/possessed/deposed/other by aliens?

And, Rose remembered, he hadn't actually _said_ anything about _why_ he'd pulled her through the blue custard.

Oh, that was good. Rose did a bit of rearranging.

Reason Two: Pulled me back here with no explanation, warning, or reason.

Reason Three: Took five bloody years to do it.

There, five reasons, in a fairly good order. Well, four if she didn't really have to cut off her hair, and seeing as she'd gone through the rest of the shampoo, that decision would have to wait until they could at least find a pharmacy. Rose was almost sorry she didn't save a little of the blue gunk to slap in _his_ hair, just to get even. That would have been good, covering her hand with blue and running it through his hair. Maybe he'd reach up and catch her hand as she did it, fingers wrapping around her own all tangled up, which of course would pull her closer to him….

Wait a minute. What was she _thinking_? She was supposed to be angry with him!

Right. More rearranging. Reason Four: Still looks fantastic in pinstripes. Bloody Time Lord.

* * *

At first, Mickey thought Jackie wasn't answering the phone because she wasn't _there_ to answer the phone. That possibility caused more problems than he might have otherwise supposed, because then he would have had to question his own sanity. If Jackie didn't exist, neither did Rose, and Mickey was absolutely certain he remembered them both being there.

This disturbing concept was happily negated when Jackie picked up the line, out of breath and sounding almost annoyed.

"Hello?"

He almost cried. "Oh, thank God, Jackie, I found you."

"Mickey? Oh, no – is your grandmother? What's happened?"

"No, Gram's fine – it's…ah. Can you come down here? I don't think I can say this over the phone."

"I suppose I could. The twins aren't due back for a few hours, but if it's quick I think I could manage it. I'm not sure how to access your offices, it's a bit tricky, isn't it? And I thought you'd always said I didn't have clearance?"

"I'll make sure you've got it by the time you're here. Half an hour?"

She let out a peal of laughter. "Forty-five minutes, a girl needs her make-up." And Jackie hung up without another word.

Mickey set the receiver back down, but the sense of relief he'd originally felt washed away the second the phone dropped from his hand.

Knowing Mickey was disturbed – knowing something had gone wrong – knowing disaster had not struck Mickey's grandmother – Jackie had not been the least bit concerned about her daughter, Rose.

More worried than before, Mickey picked up the phone and rang through to security, beginning to wonder if he, in fact, wasn't going insane.

Clearing Jackie Tyler through security was easy; being the wife of Pete Tyler had its advantages. It helped, too, that she was friendly to everyone she met, which was a change from his first wife. Everyone loved the second Jackie, everyone who met her wanted to do nice things for her, and even though she knew it, she rarely took advantage of it. Mickey was somehow profoundly grateful for it as he escorted her into the facility and they boarded the lift that would take them below.

"Never been in here before, quite a treat, this," said Jackie, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. "What brought this on, then?"

Mickey remained silent, not knowing how to start. Jackie patted his arm.

"Mickey, are you sure it's not Rita-Anne?"

"Yes," he said thickly. "Gram's fine. I spoke with her ten minutes ago. She sends her love."

"Then what's wrong?"

He glanced at her. "I…."

She patted his arm again. The lift stopped, and the doors opened to a long hallway, at the end of which was a bolted door. Jackie looked at it and frowned.

"Mickey, you're starting to scare me."

"I'm sorry, Jackie," he said thickly. "I don't mean to. I just don't know how to say this…." He took a breath. "Rose disappeared this morning."

Jackie looked at him, eyes wide, completely silent. Mickey walked to the door and began unfastening the bolts.

"She came in a little late, and I was curt with her. There's been a strange blue box here, in that room behind the door there, actually, and it started humming. The same sort of hum from the Doctor's Tardis."

He threw open the door, and Jackie peered into the room. There, in the center, was the blue box, still humming jauntily. Mickey found that once he'd started talking, he couldn't stop.

"We ran tests on it, and they came back this morning. I handed her the results and sent her down here to examine the box, and we had a power fluctuation and the alarms went off. When everything came back online – well, she was gone. Just – gone. The test results, too, and I can't find Rose anywhere. I can't find a _trace_ of Rose, except that you're here, so I know she has to be here. Or she was here, and I think that blue box has something to do with it, and I just don't know what else to do, and—"

"Mickey," said Jackie slowly, "I think you're hysterical."

Mickey blinked at her. "Wh-what?"

"Sweetheart, did you stay up very late last night? Were you playing with all those odd alien devices and perhaps something fogged your memory?"

"Jackie, I'm telling you – Rose was here this morning—"

"Mickey, you're telling me things I already know."

Mickey wasn't sure if he was relieved or just very afraid. "But…how? Who told you?"

"You did, Mickey. Four ago – when it happened. Rose disappeared four years ago into the blue box, in that room."

Mickey slumped against the wall. "But…it was….I remember her. This morning. Today."

Jackie patted his arm. "I think you've been working too hard, dear," said Jackie kindly. "Now, take me to your office, and we'll see about finding you a nice cup of tea."

"F-four years ago?"

Jackie nodded, sympathetically.

"But….where did she go?"

"Home, of course," said Jackie. "Where else?"

Mickey swallowed. "Yes. Tea. Okay."

He shut the door again, and let her lead him back to the lift, wondering what in the hell was going on.

* * *

Rose didn't see the Doctor immediately upon returning to the console room, and it gave her heart a curious flutter to think he wasn't there. It wasn't until she heard the bang of something below the grating fall, and the high-pitched and surprised "Ouch!" that she realized he was in his usual place, fixing something below.

She moved as quietly as she could, which wasn't difficult once the banging began again, and somehow managed to get to the open grating without him noticing. He was hard at work, focused entirely on some sort of circuitry, his sonic screwdriver lodged between his teeth, a set of wires in either hand, and for the extreme malfunction, a mallet resting on his chest.

She didn't say anything. It was too good, just standing there, drinking it in, seeing him again. His hair so mussed it fooled you into thinking it was curly; the way his sideburns shaped his face; his jacket firmly buttoned when other men might have tossed it and the tie in the corner. It felt like the previous five years hadn't happened, like it was just her and him and the Tardis. Maybe a Jack, maybe a Mickey, but always like this, just them.

And him, just as distracted as he had always been. Which was just as well – Rose really didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to say when he finally noticed—

"Oh, hello."

He held the sonic screwdriver in his hand now, and was looking up at her with a near unreadable expression. She tried to smile back at him, and found it hard going.

"Hello."

"The blue came out, looks like."

"Yeah, mostly." The conversation was too normal. It was too close to an exchange that might have happened before Canary Wharf, and Rose burst into tears. Quick as a flash – Time Lord, him, he would have said – he was out of the grating and pushing her back to the jump seat, where she sat with a thump, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

"Stupid to be crying like this," she sniffed.

"Had a hard day," he said. "Here, I've got a handkerchief."

"When did…thanks." She took it and blew her nose, and then frowned. "Blue!"

This disarmed him more than anything. "Hopefully won't stay that way."

She crumpled the handkerchief in her hand, keeping her eyes focused on her lap. It wasn't that she didn't _want_ to look at him, but that she wasn't sure what would happen if she did. For a moment, she half wished that she wasn't sitting there, and that he'd left her where she was.

"Rose—"

"Why'd you do it?" she blurted out, still not meeting his eyes. "I mean…the _console_ room, Doctor. Of all the places to let me wake up!" She groaned and covered her eyes with the hand not holding the handkerchief. "Oh, I _had_ to pick the last thing on the list, didn't I?"

"List?"

"I came up with a bloody _list_, in the shower, of reasons why I ought to knock your head in, and that was the _last_ thing on it," she said. Without thinking she moved her hand back down and stared him in the eyes. "Reason Number Six. You pull me out of the blue custard and let me lay on grating for four days. _Four days_. Do you have any idea how much my muscles ache?"

"I put a blanket under you," he said, trying to be helpful, and she stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Rose? I think you're hysterical."

"YOU THINK?" She fell to her side, aching with laughter. She felt nearly hysterical, really. It was an odd sensation, and Rose didn't like it.

The Doctor scooped her up from the jump seat. "Allons-y, not another word until you've slept," he said firmly.

"No," said Rose through the laughter, and started to struggle a bit.

"No arguments now, this is Doctor's orders—" Her hand brushed his face in her struggles, and it nearly seemed to stick to his skin, as if coated in glue. She tried to pull it away lightly at first, but it refused to budge. It took far too much effort to pull it away, and felt like she pulled two pieces of very strong tape apart.

"_Put me down_!"

He did, dropping her feet onto the grating with a clang. Her hand fell away from his cheek in a sudden _rrrrrip_, and he stared at her in shock. "That hurt, you nearly ripped my skin off!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Nuh-uh—"

Rose reached out and touched his cheek again. Her fingers stuck fast. She rested them there for a moment, suddenly well aware that she was touching him – _touching_ him, like she'd wanted to do since Norway, and hadn't been able to do even in dreams. His skin was cool, and just the tiniest bit rough, but as much as she wanted to cup her hand around his chin, she pulled it away, feeling it rip as their skin broke contact. His eyes went wide, and he stared at her for a moment, before his hand went to his reddening cheek in shock.

"Ow," he said.

"I was having a _good_ day, you know," she said.

"That _hurt_," he said, utterly and completely surprised.

"You pulled me out of what was going to be a _really_ good day!"

He looked up at her. "Did you have to _hurt_ me?"

She stared at him, unable to think of an appropriate response. It was just too much.

"I'm going to bed."

"Right where you left it," he said numbly.

"Don't you dare wake me up."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"And when I wake up, and my brain's not all fogged up, and my head doesn't hurt and my muscles don't ache, we're talking. We're going to sit down and have a cup of tea and have an extremely _long_ conversation about what has happened in the last four days, and the last five years before it."

"Right – wait – five years?"

Rose looked at him oddly. "Yeah, five years."

He looked completely confused now. "What happened five years ago?" He frowned, and then backed away from her, banging his fist against his head. "Wait. Stupid, stupid, stupid….oh, this is mad. This is brilliantly mad. But if you say – _five_ years? _Five_ years…and four days here…and _I_ thought…but no. No no no no no…"

"Ah, Doctor?"

He looked at her, with that half-mad glint in his eye, the one she recognized from before. "Two possibilities, Rose. Tell me which is right. You say _five_ years we have to discuss. Would you be saying we have to discuss the five years since we first met in the basement of Henrik's, or the five years since I last saw you in Norway?"

Rose's mouth dropped open. "Norway."

He reeled. "Ah. That complicates matters."

"Why?"

"If it's been five years since we saw each other in Norway – Jackie's going to _kill_ me."

Rose stared at him. "How?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's got something up her sleeve."

"My mother is on the other side of the blue box, Doctor," said Rose, trying to keep calm.

"You don't have near enough confidence in your mother!"

And just then, the phone on the control panel began to ring. The Doctor held up a finger to Rose, and leaned back to answer it. "Hello!"

"Doctor, is she there?" said the person on the other end of the line, in an altogether familiar voice, and sounding intensely worried. "Is she awake? How is she? I've been worried sick! You said you'd call the moment she woke up, and it's been a week now, Doctor, and I just want to know if my little girl is all right…."

The Doctor looked at Rose and held the phone out. "Rose? It's your mother. I think she wants to talk to you."

Rose fainted.


	3. Tea

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ When in doubt..._

* * *

**Chapter Three: Tea**

Jackie was not impressed with the state of Mickey's office, not at all. First, there were no pictures on the wall. Second, the books in the shelves were tossed in upside down and sideways. Third – and perhaps most important – it had lino on the floor.

"You warrant a rug at least, surely," she said, taking the cup of tea from him. "You're that important, aren't you?"

"I don't spend much time in here," said Mickey. "Jackie, can you humor me for a couple of minutes?"

"Are you going to start in again on that nonsense from before?"

"Please, Jackie."

She sighed. "All right. But I don't know what exactly it is you've called me down here to do."

Mickey wasn't all that sure either, but in the last eight years since arriving in the parallel world, he'd had some training on how to deal with odd situations. "First thing's first. What's your name?"

She began to laugh. "Don't be daft now, Mickey—"

"Jackie, please."

"I'm Jackie Tyler, of course!"

"And you're married to Peter Tyler?"

"Have been for – oh, near on five years now. You were at the wedding."

"You have a daughter?"

"Oh, now you're just being ridiculous."

"Jackie—"

"Goodness, Mickey, one might think you've got amnesia. You don't have amnesia, do you?" Mickey didn't answer, so Jackie continued. "I have two daughters and a son. The twins are Molly and Donald, and then there's my oldest daughter, Rose. You and she dated for a little bit, but then she ran off with the Doctor. Story of her life, really, running off with the Doctor."

"Where is she?"

The teacup in Jackie's hand trembled. "Well…I don't exactly know. But she calls every few days, she's very good about that."

"You said she disappeared four years ago?"

"Yes, exactly how you described it before. Blue humming box, poof, and gone. Took a few days for her to call, but that's traveling between dimensions for you. She's all right now, or was yesterday when she called."

Mickey's head swam. "Four years ago?"

"Yes."

"You haven't seen Rose in four years?"

"Well – no, not as such."

"And she wasn't here this morning? She didn't disappear into the blue box this morning?"

"Mickey, do you need me to call a doctor?"

"So for the past four years, you and Pete have been living together, but Rose is off…traveling?"

"Yes, that's it."

"That isn't how I remember the last four years at all," said Mickey slowly.

* * *

The kitchen wasn't exactly how Rose remembered it, but it was close enough. There were new dishtowels, for one thing, and it looked like whoever had been there last had actually known how to cook something (unlike herself, who'd always opted for take-away chips). Despite this, she found the tea in exactly the same place, with the same mugs in the same cupboards. The sugar dish and the milk jug were just as she remembered them, and all this made the process of actually making the tea strangely comforting.

"Darjeeling," said Rose as she set the tea mugs down on the table. "I thought you liked Earl Grey better."

"Ran out – I was drinking a lot of tea waiting for you to wake up," he replied, sitting across from her. He wrapped his hands around the mug. "And Martha liked—"

"Martha?"

"She was here after you – not like that. She kept me sane, a bit. If I'd been alone, I might have lost my mind. Rose, I—"

Rose set down the mug. "No. I…I know there's things you should probably tell me, but I don't think I want to hear them just yet. That is, I need answers, but not the ones I think you'd rather give me right now."

"It wasn't like that with me and Martha."

"I don't care about Martha," said Rose frankly. "I want to know how it is that my mother was calling on the Tardis console phone." She shook her head. "No, not that. I mean, yes, that, but…" She fished into the pocket in her jeans, and pulled out a scrap of paper, spreading it flat on the table.

"What's that?"

"My list. The one I wrote in my head before I took that nap. The reasons why I ought to be angry with you. Mum on the phone I suppose goes under Reason Number One, but considering Mum was on the console phone, I think I might have to re-order the list."

"All right," said the Doctor slowly. "So if One isn't One anymore, what's One?"

"Two," said Rose. "Pulling me back here, with no warning or explanation. Why did you do it?"

"I would have thought you'd ask how."

"Not as important, not now, and anyway, you explained it before even if I don't entirely understand how it worked. Right now, I want to hear why."

The Doctor looked at her – really looked at her. "You don't know?"

Rose frowned. "You stupid bloody Time Lord. Of _course_ I don't know. One minute I'm at work, staring at a stupid humming blue box, and the next minute it's four days and a dimension later, and I'm covered in blue custard in your Tardis. And it's been _five years_ since you left me there, the least you could have done was given me some idea that you'd come back. Or send for me. Or whatever it is you did, and…_five years_."

"I missed you."

She stared at him. "That's _it_?"

"What do you mean, that's it? Isn't that enough?"

"That's all you have to say? You _missed_ me?"

"Yeah, I missed you! It's no good, being alone!"

"But you weren't alone, were you, Doctor? You had Mary—"

"Martha!"

"Martha, whatever, you weren't alone. How quickly after I left did you bring her here? A week? A day? Or—" Rose faltered. "Was she here then? Was she in the Tardis when you said – was she?"

It struck a little too close to home, but that wasn't what startled him. It was about as bad as he feared, and worse. He'd never really _seen_ Rose angry before. Not so angry that she couldn't think straight, anyway. If there was something Rose had always been able to do, even when in mortal danger or running for her life or trapped in an impossible corner, she'd always been able to think straight.

"Rose," he said carefully. "I ran some tests on the blue custard. To figure out why it's doing that adhering trick. Something about it – it's a bit like a stimulant, it causes erratic brain functions. I think it may be heightening your feelings – causing you to believe you feel more upset than you really are—"

"Oh, no, Doctor," said Rose. "I _am_ this upset. This is me, upset, at your kitchen table. And blue or no blue, you're dodging the question and I want to hear you _say_ why you brought me back."

"I missed _you_," he said, his voice cool and firm. "Not Martha. Not Mickey. Not Jack. You. I wanted _you_ here. I wanted _you_ in the Tardis with me, bouncing around from planet to planet, playing in time and laughing and all the rest. I wanted you giving me those looks, and never getting your hair properly pulled back from your face. _You_, Rose. Just _you_."

"Lonely? You pulled me here because you're _lonely_?"

"Isn't that what I've been _saying_?"

"You are such a _prat_! You left me to forge a new life for _five years_ and you pull me back out of it because you thought, 'Oo, wouldn't it be lovely to have Rose around, she's a nice girl to have in my life' and you _missed_ me?!"

"Yeah, that's EXACTLY it!"

"You are such a load of _shite_!"

"I love you, okay!" he shouted, banging his mug on the table. Tea flew everywhere, covering the table and dripping onto the floor. The Doctor jumped out of his seat and grabbed the nearest dishtowel to mop it up, working furiously and decidedly not meeting Rose's eyes. Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him for a moment, and then settled back into her seat.

"Well," she managed, watching as the Doctor continued to avoid her gaze as he dropped to the floor with the towel. "Doctor?"

He gulped. "Rose?"

"I suppose that takes care of Reason Two."

* * *

"How do you remember it?" asked Jackie.

Mickey stirred the tea in his cup absently. "I remember Rose being here. She started working here right after you and Pete were married, and she's been here ever since. Still lives with you. We went to see The 39 Steps last weekend, she and I."

"Oh, was it good? Pete's been wanting, but I never liked Hitchcock."

"Yeah, real funny, you'd like it. Rose cried, she laughed so hard. Haven't seen her laugh like that since – well, since before the Doctor stranded her here."

"Wasn't his fault," said Jackie, and Mickey glanced up at her.

"You never said that before."

"What are you, I say that all the time. It wasn't his fault, what happened, and he tried to keep her safe. And besides, he did right by her in the end, didn't he?"

"What are you saying?"

"Well, she's back with him now, isn't she? Who did you think she was traveling with, Mickey Smith?"

Mickey stared at her. "How do you know where she is?"

"I told you, she calls me every few days. Just yesterday morning, so I don't know that she'll call again before tomorrow. She's a good girl, my Rose."

"You're saying – she's been with the Doctor for _four years_?"

Jackie sighed. "Broken record, you are. I'm going to say it one more time, Mickey Smith, and then I'm not repeating it again. One year after they said good-bye at Bad Wolf Bay in Norway, the Doctor was able to pull my daughter Rose back into the other parallel world, and she's been traveling with him ever since. I don't know how he did it, or why it took him a year to do it, but that's where she has been the last four years and that's where she wants to stay. The way the Doctor explained it to me – and to you, I might add – is that as long as the blue box stays exactly as it is now, perfectly safe and undisturbed, she can call me here as often as she likes. I had your _word_, Mickey Smith, that you'd keep that box safe for me. I'd better still have it."

Mickey swallowed. "You do. On one condition."

"What?"

"The next time she calls, I want to talk to Rose."

* * *

The Doctor wrung out the tea towel over the sink. Not a word had been spoken in five minutes. Rose watched him, her heart still thumping in her chest. He hadn't _really_ said it, had he? Not like that – not shouting in anger – and right after she'd called him a shite, too – oh dear. She was not doing well with the timing that day. Not a bit, first with Mum and the squid for dinner, and now with the Doctor clearly traumatized over spilt tea. Maybe there was something in that blue custard after all, that was seeping into her brain, making her irrational. It had to have been because he didn't wash it off properly, those four days on the console room floor—

"What was Reason Three?"

Rose was knocked out of her musing. "What?"

"The third reason you're angry with me. I was just wondering, that's all."

"Oh." Rose looked down at the paper, having completely forgotten. "Oh. Why it took five years for you to figure out how to get me."

He left the tea towel in the sink and came back to the table, still unable to meet her eyes. "I didn't know it'd been five years for you."

She looked at him curiously. "How long has it been for you?"

He paused, almost hesitating before his answer, as if he was measuring time. "Bit more than a year. Time moves differently, in the different dimensions. Remember, Mickey lived in the parallel world for three years after the Cybermen, and it was only a few months for us. But I couldn't have found you any earlier than I did. Five years – that's too long. I didn't know it was so long. It's not good, working across that much time."

"I almost got over you, you know," she said, and that made him look up at her.

"Sorry?"

"Over you. Leaving me there. Took me six months before I could get through a day without crying. Another year before I stopped chasing down men in long brown trench coats. And the first time I saw a man wearing a pinstripe suit?" She laughed, a bit hollow at the memory. "Well, I got over it. Sort of. But you wouldn't leave me alone, Doctor. Some days, it seemed like every time I turned around, something popped up that reminded me of you. Today was like that – I mean, four days ago, or five days ago, or however long it was before I was bathed in blue custard. You were always there, just out of reach. Another year, and I might have made it."

He was quiet for a moment. "Do you wish I'd waited another year?"

She stood up so quickly, her legs hit the table and made it shudder, and moved toward the sink, but he grabbed her arm as she walked past him. "Rose—"

"I'm not forgiving you for Reason Three," she said, hard "Not yet. Maybe not ever."

He bit his lip. "Okay." He let her go, and their skin stuck again like glue for a moment before releasing. She started rinsing her mug out in the sink. He noticed that she'd only managed to drink half the tea in it. "What was the fourth reason?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice thick again. "You've got the list on the table."

He leaned over to look at the list – reading upside-down wasn't that difficult. Scanning it, his mouth started to quirk. She didn't seem so angry at the moment – but heaven help him if he read _that_ particular reason aloud. The water turned off, and he sat back, managing to put on a serious face again before she saw. "I don't have my glasses. You'd better read it."

"Since when do you need your glasses to read?" she scoffed at him, and looked at the paper. Sure enough, she began to blush, and when she finally spoke, she'd skipped ahead. "Hair. I used up all the shampoo in the shower – and by the way, there were a _lot_ of shampoos in there, I don't know _what_ kind of hair Martha had but she certainly had enough of it. I don't think I managed to get all the blue custard out. I still feel like I'm wearing a very stiff wig."

"We can get you more shampoo."

"Good, because if I can't get it out, I think I might have to cut it all off and start from scratch. And I think you're right – I think that custard is doing something to my mind, I can't focus and I feel like I'm riding an emotional roller coaster. I don't _like_ it."

"Shampoo it is, then. Easy enough. What's next?"

She glanced at the paper. "Reason Six—"

"What happened to Five?"

She ignored him. "You made me wake up in the console room."

"I thought we covered that one already?"

"Yeah, but my muscles still ache, so I'm still mad."

"Will you still be mad when you aren't aching?" he asked hopefully.

She thought for a moment. "Yes. Because you could have moved me somewhere else that wasn't a hard grating floor. Like, oh, I don't know, my _bedroom_. Which, by the way, I did notice you haven't touched."

"I couldn't," he said frankly, and she looked at him oddly.

"Touch my bedroom, or move me?"

"Well, both. But really the second. I wanted to be near you when you woke up, and I had to monitor the Tardis – we're in the Vortex, I can't just leave her. And I didn't want to land her anywhere before you'd woken up."

"For _four days_?"

"I didn't know it would be four days!"

"So we're still in the Vortex?"

"Yes."

Rose thought for a minute. "And it's only been a year for you?"

The briefest of pauses. "Yes."

Rose frowned. "What year is it, on Earth?"

"2007."

"So – how old am I now?"

He rocked back in his chair. "Well, strictly speaking, you ought to be 25, since you were 20 when I saw you last, and you say you've lived five years since then. I suppose since it's 2007 here, you're legally 21. Although since you're also legally dead, it's somewhat moot. Most women would kill for that, legal proof you're four years younger than you really are."

Rose began to giggle, and he quickly joined her. "I'm four years younger!"

"Well, not exactly…"

"You made me four years younger!"

He grinned at her, clearly happy to see her smiling again, and gave in. "Yep!"

"So what do we do now?"

"I don't know!" He was still giggling. "Where do you want to go?"

Rose gradually stopped giggling. "I…I don't know. I don't really have any ties to Earth anymore, do I? Mum's in….Mum." Rose fell back to reality, hard. "She called, didn't she? On the Tardis phone – she called. I heard her voice. But….how?"

The Doctor exhaled. "Oh. Well, that's a bit tricky. It's to do with the blue box. If I'm right – and I'm almost always right – your box was at Torchwood, wasn't it?"

"Yes, in one of the lock-down rooms in the basement. It's a safe place to store alien forms while we try to figure out what it's about. Oddest thing, too – no one knows where it came from or how it got there. Mickey and I stumbled across it one day about four years ago, and when we realized we were the only ones who could see it, we moved it into one of the lock-down rooms for safe-keeping."

The Doctor was puzzled. "Only you and Mickey? What did everyone else see?"

"Just a sort of haze, like fog, or steam. It started humming a few weeks ago, so Mickey ran tests, and when it began humming the day before you pulled me through, he sent me down to look at it."

The Doctor thought for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sounds like it's safe enough, then. And I know the box here is safe under Torchwood Tower. As long as the crossroads aren't harmed, you should be able to maintain a telephonic link with the other world."

"Like the hokery-pokery with my superphone? So I can call Mum from anywhere, anytime?"

"Exactly," said the Doctor, eyes bright. "Only not for very long, or very often. And if we're too far from the crossroads, the connection will be weaker. We'll have to go to Earth to get a superphone for you. I've been using the Tardis phone while you've been out – had to call Jackie and tell her where you were, or she would have found a way through to hurt me."

"Then Mum really does knows where I am?" Rose began to brighten. "She's okay? She's not worried?"

"Oh, worried, she's worried, but not about where you are. Only because she hasn't heard your voice since you got here. We should probably give her a ring."

Rose jumped up. "What are we _waiting_ for?" She ran out the door and down the hall, straight into the Tardis console room and the phone on the instrument panel. The Doctor was right behind her, suddenly looking anxious.

"Rose, there's something I ought to tell you—"

But Rose had dialed, and the line was ringing, and before the first ring had even finished, Jackie Tyler had answered.

"Rose?" Her voice was near high-pitched, and full of worry.

"Mum, it's me, I'm fine."

"_Rose_." Jackie burst into tears. "Oh, Rose, I was so worried. The Doctor said you'd wake up soon, but I just wanted to hear your voice…."

"I'm here. I've been awake for a little bit, had to shower. It was pretty messy getting here."

"Are you all right?"

"A little weak, but yeah, I think so."

"Have that man give you some tea."

"He did." Rose gripped the receiver. "Mum, it's so good to hear your voice. And I'm so sorry, what I said to you this morning. I mean, that morning, when I left."

There was a pause. "Sweetheart?"

"If I'd known it was the last thing I was going to say, I would have made sure to tell you I loved you. And Pete, and Molly and Donald….."

"Rose," said her mother, sounding a bit funny. "You did say you loved me. You told it to Pete, too, and gave the twins a kiss in their bassinet."

Rose's skin went cold, and she glanced over at the Doctor, who was sitting on the jump seat now, his head in his hands.

"Did I?'

"That trip must have been harder than you thought, love. What do you think you said to me?"

"Squid," she said absently. "I said I wouldn't eat squid."

The Doctor might have laughed, she wasn't sure. But Jackie did laugh then. "Catch me eating _squid_ of all things! You work for Torchwood for nine months, Rose Tyler, and all of a sudden you start getting ideas!"

"Nine months? Mum, I was working there for—"

Before she could finish, the Doctor had jumped up from the bench and was motioning wildly at Rose to cut off the conversation. Rose stared at him for a moment.

"Ten months," she finished. "Ten. Wasn't it?"

"Oh, there's the car – Rose, sweetheart, I have to go, Pete and I are heading to Majorca and the zeppelin won't wait. You'll call on the mobile, won't you?"

"Yes, of course. We'll probably stop and get one for me, I'll ring you on that."

"Lovely. So good to hear your voice – and Rose?"

But Rose was still distracted. "Mum?"

"I'm happy for you, Rose. I know I won't get to see you again, the Doctor explained it, but I'm happy for you. And for him. I know this is what you want. Don't worry about me, all right? Just ring me, often as you can."

"Of course, I will, I always do, don't I?"

"Love you, sweetheart—"

The connection went out. Rose set down the receiver, still staring at the Doctor, who was wearing an extremely sheepish look.

"Mum and Pete are going to Majorca," she said slowly. "They went to Majorca four years ago, a sort of second honeymoon, after the twins were born."

He looked at her, eyes wide.

"Mum hated it. She said she'd never go again."

He kept looking at her.

"She thinks I've only been working for Torchwood for nine months."

He didn't say a word.

"I've been working there nearly five years."

He nodded slowly.

"She said the twins were in a bassinet – but they started school two months ago."

The Doctor bit his lip.

"I was talking to my mum…but, the mum I was talking to thinks it's four years ago."

"No, Rose," said the Doctor. "It _is_ four years ago. The crossroads, when you came through it – it changed things. When I pulled you through, I – I messed up, Rose. When I pulled you through, I evened the way time flows. I put your world and mine on the same cycle temporarily, sort of a consequence of the transfer. The reason your mum doesn't remember the last four years is because to her, it's only been a year since we said our goodbyes in Norway. The last four years of your life never happened."


	4. Talk

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ In which things are not explained quite to Rose's liking.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Four: Talk**

Rose blinked.

"Rose?"

She looked up at the support beams.

"Really, it's all right, Rose. You're just a bit more experienced now than you were four years ago. It's like Rose Extra!"

She looked at the console.

"The Rose Bonus Pack! Four years of information instantly available at your fingertips! That's quite a nice surprise, isn't it?"

She looked at the grating on the floor.

"Rose? You're not mad, are you?"

"I'm still processing. You took me out of time, and I have four extra years of life?"

"Ah, yes?"

"Okay."

He brightened. "Oh, good."

"No, not really. I'm four years older than I should be."

"Yep."

"Mum said it's okay that I'm here with you."

"She did, yeah."

"Does she still think I'm twenty-one?"

"Yep."

"Does she know how I got here?"

"She thinks it happened four years before it really did."

"So she doesn't remember the four years."

"Only you came through the crossroads, so you're the only one who does. Eye of the storm."

"Wait – you don't remember them, either?"

"They never happened to me."

"Huh."

"Just…huh?"

"Well, it's a lot to take in, isn't it? I've got four extra years of memories. I don't understand how it happened."

"It's sort as if…I collapsed time in Pete's world when I pulled you through the crossroads. You're a bit out of place, but there isn't another Rose, so it's not as if you don't belong. Just…not quite."

"But – no Reapers."

"Well…the world still needs a Rose in it, this world I mean, and so you're here. The parallel world, it didn't need a Rose. So no Reapers because there's nothing to fix."

"So Mum's safe? And Pete? And Mickey?"

"They're all safe."

"And me?"

"And you."

"And you?"

His grin brightened the room by half. "Me most of all."

"And…what do I do?"

"Same as we always did. Run rings around Saturn and meet Will Shakespeare – didn't you always want to meet Will Shakespeare? Jolly brilliant, you'd like him, I think. And we never did get to Barcelona, did we? That ought to be first on the list, but really first, we have to buy you a mobile, so you can call your Mum. I did promise every couple of days. Pretty sure we can send photos to her, too, so we'll be sure to get a good phone, one of those high-techy ones you lot are always reinventing."

"But, Doctor….what if…."

"…If?"

"I don't want to go to Barcelona. Or Saturn. Or Shakespeare. I'm not nineteen anymore, Doctor. I…I don't think I want that anymore."

"…Rose?"

"I mean, that was fine when I was younger, get out and see a few things, have a few adventures, but the last five years – Doctor, I had a life, I had friends, I had a job, and I wasn't half bad at it. Mum and me and Pete, we were getting along fine, I have a brother and sister now, Doctor, and it was really good, you know? It's not that I didn't like traveling with you, Doctor, I loved it, but—"

"Were you happy?"

She stared at him now.

"Rose? Were you happy?"

"I…I'm confused."

"You list all those things, life, friends, job, mum, but you didn't say if you were happy. Because if you were happy, Rose – that's all I ever wanted. Well, ginger hair and a good cup of tea, but you beside me and happy. And if I can't have the ginger hair and the only tea left is Darjeeling, then I'd rather you be happy, even if it's not beside me. If you were happy, Rose, we'll go straight to Canary Wharf and find the crossroads and I'll send you home, but you have to say you were happy."

"You'd…do that?"

"Of course I would."

"You…._prat_. You utter and complete _prat_."

"Rose?"

"You'd up and _send_ me back again, just because you think it's what I really want? Oooo, this is why it took six months to stop crying, you utter and complete _bloody_ stupid Time Lord, thinking you know everything because you're so great and mighty – you don't get it, do you? I wasn't _happy_, how on earth could I be _happy_? You send me there without so much as a by-your-leave, and when you did have a chance to say goodbye, you couldn't even do that!"

She gave him a shove. "You might as well have left me in _Aberdeen_, it was all wrong! And you always do that – oops, Rose is here, Rose is in danger, let's pack Rose in cotton wool and never mind what she wants, never mind her opinion, we'll just assume it's my own since I'm the mighty Time Lord and she's the insignificant stupid ape."

Another shove. "Didn't it maybe occur to you that I didn't want to be in that parallel world? Maybe I had a job and a life and friends and all that, but there was one stupid thing missing and every day I had a reminder of you made it just that more perfect a day. Made me think I wasn't the only person who'd ever seen the end of the world or New Earth or werewolves or Roxi…Raxicor…Raxacare…."

"Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"_Stop being right all the time_! Do you know how bloody hard it is to love you when you're _right_ all the time?"

"…Rose?"

"Because if you're _right_ all the time, and you always are, then you were _right_ to leave me to that stupid parallel world. Even if it felt _wrong_ every minute, even if my skin felt funny and everyone's words left their mouths half a second too late, like a DVD not properly lined up. Maybe it meant I was just being a stupid ape _again_ for not trusting that it was right, and if you're always right and I'm always wrong, maybe it was right that you don't love me and wrong that I love you."

His eyes widened. "What?"

She didn't hear; she was lost in herself. "And I _can't stand_ the thought of that, because the only thing that ever felt right there was all those things that reminded me of you. The smell of bananas or a black leather jacket or a brown trench coat or even the stupid cinema on the corner playing _Das Boot_, it was always you and it always made me…."

"No, go back—"

"Made me…."

"Say it again, Rose!"

"So take me back, or don't take me back, I don't _care_, but stop pretending you're doing it to make me happy. Because the last time I was happy was five years ago with you and I've forgotten what it feels like. You're the wise and intelligent one, maybe you really do know what's best for me, so _you_ figure out what makes me happy, Doctor, and _then do it_."

So he did.

He kissed her.


	5. Kisses

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ Kisses have a way of changing the subject, really.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Five: Kisses**

It was the kiss that somehow centered her. It calmed her mind and slowed her blood, soothed aching skin and put in crystal clear terms exactly what everything meant.

As kisses went, it wasn't a bad one. Rose had kissed the Doctor once, and been kissed by him once. She only remembered them as dreams, really, since at neither time had she exactly been in her right mind. When her first Doctor had kissed her – well, that had been sweet, kind, gentle. Like they'd been teenagers on their first date, someone's father behind the nearest door. Remembering made Rose smile – or would have, if it had not been so closely followed by her second Doctor and the turmoil he'd brought with him.

The second kiss, her second Doctor, that was different. That was Cassandra taking over in a way Rose wouldn't have dared do. Not that Rose hadn't enjoyed every last moment of it – sometimes, Rose half wondered if the reason Cassandra had done it at all was because Rose herself wanted it, but was too afraid to try.

This kiss—

Oh, this kiss was more.

This wasn't one of them kissing the other, at least not after the first moment. This was the two of them together, reaching equally for the other, his hands cupping her face, then moving to her shoulders, then holding her to his chest. It was her fingers resting lightly on the sleeves of his coat, before creeping up his shoulders and grasping his collar. This kiss was silent and cautious, questions and answers as his lips first touched hers, and she pressed up to him. No idea whose lips parted first – perhaps it was simultaneous, but Rose lifted herself up to her toes to reach him, and he helped hold her there. This kiss was exploration, and testing, and asking questions to receive answers, gradually growing more bold. Rose could feel the kiss straight down to her toes, could feel the uncertainty and anxiousness melt away beneath his fingers. His, too – maybe it was the residue of blue, but she almost thought she could feel his tension ease away as his tongue explored her mouth, as his fingers became entangled into her hair. They made no sound, save for their hearts beating in tune; even the near-constant hum of the Tardis was ebbing away into the distance.

After, with no inclination to move, their foreheads rested together and their breath matched, slow inhales and exhales. Rose didn't want to open her eyes; she thought the Doctor's eyes were closed as well, and in the stillness felt more clearly what she'd known as Bad Wolf. She _saw_ – him, Tardis, herself. It struck her dumb for a moment.

"Rose." It was a whisper, half a question, half a prayer.

"I'll never see my mum again," she said under her breath, because it was true.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry – I made your choice for you. I wish there had been another way."

"But it was my choice anyway," said Rose. "I told you before, didn't I, that I had already chosen."

"When you came back through the Void," he said slowly. "That was the last time I was happy, I think."

"Me too."

"But Rose – it was only seconds. How could I believe something you'd chosen in seconds was really right?"

"Oh, Doctor, I'd chosen long before then, too."

She could feel his brow furrow against her own. "When?"

"The first time you kissed me, on Satellite 5."

She kissed him again, just on one side of his mouth, and then the other, hands creeping up to his hair, where the fingers wrapped themselves tight. She made circles around his lips.

"But – you – you wanted to go home. I changed, and I took you home."

"I was afraid. I'm not afraid anymore."

"Aren't you? I – I am."

"Good," she said, coming away from the trail of kisses. "Someone ought to be."

This time, he kissed her, if not as tenderly, then with more confidence. A step forwards for him, and she'd backed into the support beam, and was leaned into it. She liked the feel of the Tardis cradling her, keeping her steady, and she could feel a faint vibration running through the beam, almost as if the ship was purring.

And then the purrs grew louder. He pulled away.

"Rose – did your stomach just rumble?"

She blinked. "Ah. It might have."

He grinned, the spell broken. "Not the noise I was hoping for. When was the last time you ate?"

"I don't remember. It must have been before – well, before."

"Four days ago? You should have said, no wonder you fainted on me before. Where to? I'm short stocked, but there's enough for lunch on the Tardis. Or we're an hour away from Earth, if you fancy chips – what am I saying, you're Rose, you always fancy chips. Or in twenty minutes we could be on Karfel, did I ever take you there? Fantastic eating there. Stalls of food as far as the eye can see, and most of it edible."

She was laughing. Here was her Doctor, the one she remembered, mouth fully intact. "Sandwiches in the Tardis sound perfect. And – oh, I remember a garden?"

He was momentarily surprised. "You don't want to land?"

"I don't mind, but I want to be able to sit and eat in peace with you, so we can talk. And I don't want to run for my life today – I might have been asleep the last four days but I still feel exhausted."

He let go of her and took her hands in his, swinging them, unable to keep the grin off his face. "You're here."

"I am."

"You're _here_."

"That or you're dreaming."

He pulled her close to him again. "No. No dream." He gave her a chaste kiss, considering the others. "Do you remember how to find the garden? I'll meet you there with sandwiches."

"And crisps? And fruit? And something to drink?"

"Yes, and yes, and yes, and race you!"

She beat him there, of course, even after a detour to find a blanket in her room – the fact that it was untouched disturbed her, just a bit – and she found a perfect spot beneath the grapevines. Spreading out the blanket, she lay down and closed her eyes to think.

She was still angry. Oh, yes, it was most certainly there, a faint bubble of hurt and pain and upset, but though it seethed it was quiet, and the kisses had made it easy to ignore. Here alone, it was more difficult, and Rose frowned. She didn't want to be angry with him. Not today, not again, and not with the blue residue still in her system. She had let him wrap her in kisses, and she wanted to stay that way, for now, knowing perfectly well that soon enough, the anger would come out.

Of course it would, she knew this, and it was probably a good thing, because she wasn't going to be able to live with him if she kept the anger there. It wasn't fair to him, either, to have this growing resentment stand between them.

For now, she would concentrate on other things. She wasn't the same Rose anymore, and he wouldn't be the same Doctor, though perhaps he wouldn't have changed quite as much. She had five years of life without him nearby, and even though they'd been hard, she still had them. In a way, what she'd said earlier was true. She had no wish to step back into that old life with him, not as it had been. Going from planet to planet, no plans or intentions, just wandering time and space without goals. She wanted – well, she didn't know what she wanted, but she wanted it all the same. Surely, based on the kisses, he wanted it too?

(She shoved the idea of anything more than kisses down deep. Not that it wouldn't have been very very nice, but really, counting chickens.)

So, settled, knowing just what she wanted to tell him, and what she would leave for later, Rose opened her eyes to find him sitting cross-legged next to her on the blanket.

"Hullo," he said. "I didn't want to wake you."

"I didn't think I was asleep. I never heard you come in, though – how long have you been sitting there?"

"Composed a lit of things the Tardis needs the next time we pass Fespa, but that's done now. Prawn mayo or chicken?"

Rose pushed herself up to sit. "Oh, prawn."

"Good, more chicken for me. Coronation chicken, even, my favorite."

"Are you sitting comfortably?" asked Rose, a sly look in her eye, and he rolled back with laughter. She bit into her sandwich, eyes closing in delight. "Mmm. Watercress?" Still laughing, he nodded. "This can't be your cooking, I've never seen you cook a day in your life."

"Martha," admitted the Doctor. "She packed it all in little boxes and put them in the fridge, and left very detailed instructions on how I was to assemble everything."

"That was nice of her."

"She said the only thing she couldn't supply me with was chips, because they don't cook the same way at home as they do in shops. I want you to like Martha. She's a good companion, good company. Not so fond of chips. We can get some chips when we find you a mobile to call your mum."

"I can't keep calling on the Tardis?"

He shook his head. "Better if it's a mobile. If you ring her on the Tardis, you'll always have to be in the console room, and I rather think you'd like the privacy of not being in the console room always. Not that you can call her every day, mind – the connection isn't that good. Ten or fifteen minutes every few days. I'm sorry it can't be more. It might be, if you were both directly next to the crossroads."

"The blue box, you mean?"

"Yes. I'll talk to your Mum, next time you call her, and we'll have her tell Mickey to keep it safe in your Torchwood. The one here is safe, buried down deep below the rubble, but if we need to, we can find a better place if there's ever any danger to it."

"How did you know it would work?" she asked, curious.

He lowered the sandwich to his lap, his eyes going unfocused. "I…I don't know. First time I saw it was a few centuries ago, before the Time War. I don't really remember. And then I saw it again, a few weeks ago. Jack had asked me to go to Torchwood Tower, retrieve something, and I saw it. Wasn't sure what it was, but – I heard voices from it. Couldn't place them right then. But they kept repeating in my dreams, and then it clicked. I heard you and Mickey talking."

Her breath hitched a little, but he kept his focus on the sandwich in his lap. "I'm sorry, Rose, I wish I hadn't said impossible. But it was, then. I had no idea that the box would lead me to you. I'm sorry I left you without hope."

She reached over and took his hand. "Eat your sandwich," she said gently. "I had hope anyway."

He glanced up at her and smiled. "You're here."

"Yep," she said softly. "And you're hogging the crisps."

He grinned at her, and handed them over.

"Where do you want to go first? We can't keep floating in the Vortex forever, makes the Tardis nervous. Makes me nervous too. First after Earth, that is, we need to find you a mobile. But after that?"

It was the most perfect opening she could imagine. He had laid out the proverbial silver platter, lined it with linen and lace, and presented it to her with a flourish. And yet…the shining eyes and the happy grin overruled, and she couldn't imagine what it would be to pull him back to reality so quickly, not after the way she'd been behaving towards him, hot and cold in spurts. Perhaps after a few adventures, she might bring it up….

"I don't know," she said. "Surprise me."


	6. Pairs

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ Jackie Tyler has her say (and who's really going to stop her, anyway?)._

* * *

**Chapter Six: Pairs**

In the year since Jackie and Rose found themselves in the parallel world, Jackie had been able to do three things. The first, obviously, was to sit back and assess her life and her relationship with her daughter, which led to the second, which was to see her daughter as an adult and not a child. The third was…well, that took the full year to realize, but Jackie reflected that it had been worth it.

Rose did not belong in Pete's World.

All Rose's life, Jackie realized, she had been one of a pair. First it was Jackie and Rose, mother and daughter, struggling to survive and exist in a world where they only had each other. There was nothing Jackie would not do for Rose, and vice versa. It simply was.

Then it was Rose and Jimmy Stone, and Jackie half wondered if Rose hadn't run off with Jimmy not because she had loved him, but because she'd been fighting with her mother just before, and the pair had been broken. Rose without a partner – unthinkable. Jimmy was there, and so Jimmy was it. But Rose wasn't stupid; she knew what made a good pair and what didn't.

Not that Rose and Mickey made a good pair either, but it was doable. Mickey needed Rose, more than Rose needed Mickey most days, and if nothing else, it bolstered her confidence and made her feel better after the Jimmy Stone debacle.

And finally…Rose and the Doctor.

No matter the face, it was Rose and the Doctor, like a set of gloves, mismatched but perfect.

Jackie watched, that first year, as they all began making steps to settle themselves in. Mickey had already been settled when they arrived, but he'd had more time. Rita-Anne had latched herself onto him – always calling him Ricky, but no matter – and Jackie had watched Mickey blossom in a way she never had seen him do with Rose. Suddenly, it wasn't Mickey who was needy but needed, and every weekend found him at Rita-Anne's house, mending a stair or a shelf or a door. Mickey was part of something; he was content, and Jackie knew he would be all right.

It left Rose a little lost. She didn't have Mickey to pal around with. Rita-Anne didn't understand her, didn't know what she meant to Mickey, it was painfully obvious that Rose felt out of sorts with her, unnecessary, where previously she had always been vital.

There was some guilt, because normally Rose would have turned to Jackie for comfort, but this time, Jackie wasn't there to give it. Jackie had Pete.

Finding Pete in this parallel world had been…well, Jackie couldn't rightly describe it. It was something akin to meeting an old school flame at a reunion twenty years later, and falling desperately in love again. Except it wasn't desperate so much as surprise, and Jackie was afraid to call it love, because it simply was. He wasn't her Pete, and she wasn't his Jackie, but in a way, they were a better fit. It was all too easy, and Jackie thought that Rose was happy for them when they'd married only one month into their new life.

Jackie thought the baby might have helped Rose, to be one of a pair of children, but then the baby turned out to be a pair already, Molly and Donald, and poor Rose remained the mismatched glove at the bottom of the drawer.

It wasn't that they didn't try to engage Rose, but it was hard. To Rita-Anne, she was just a girl. To Pete, she was more akin to a stepdaughter than a flesh-and-blood daughter, and Jackie, in a way, understood. If Pete and the first Jackie had had children, Jackie would have more than likely felt the same. Rose was liked, respected, and given every bit of attention and care, but love was not immediate, nor was familiarity. Not the same way.

Pairs, all of them. Except Rose.

It had been a year, and Jackie watched her daughter struggle every day to find her place in the world. Try to build some sort of life for herself, but it was hard. It might have been better if Rose had decided to go out on her own, explore a little bit, but she didn't. She stayed at home, cried, went to the movies, cried, went to the store, cried. Eventually she had a job, cried, came home, cried, went to the bank, cried.

Then one day she stopped crying. She started to pull not away, but inward. That was when Jackie became very afraid.

Which was why, a full year after Norway, and she received that phone call, Jackie thought it was the best day of her life. Or of Rose's, at least. The day had started out overcast and rain in the north, the radio a mess of static, the zeppelins hanging too low. The phone rang in the annoying way phones have when you can't find them and you've got pins in your hair, and Jackie found it on the landing and thought about cursing whoever was on the other end.

"Jackie Tyler!"

Jackie knew, right then. That voice, cheer and joy and exuberance and _light_ and she sat on the landing with a thud, unable to say a word. Which was just as well, since he was the only person she'd ever met who could outtalk her.

(No wonder, she often thought, that Rose loved him.)

"Jackie Tyler," he said again, the words rolling in the air. "I found you. It worked. I didn't think – is Rose there?"

"Where are you?"

"In the Tardis. I don't have much time, Jackie – is Rose there?"

"She's at work, she's fine – _where are you_?"

"Here – my here. Jackie, I want to say this to Rose but I ran out of time before and I can't run out again. I know how you bring you back. You and Rose, but it will be soon, and I don't know when I can't explain how – doesn't matter, you wouldn't understand, but it doesn't matter, because I do—"

"Doctor—"

"There's a device in your London, somewhere near Canary Wharf, where the Torchwood Tower was, maybe still is, and I can pull you through it just as soon as I catch the other one here. But I need you and Rose to get to that device – Mickey's working there, isn't he? Can't be hard. Little blue box, about a meter high. Should be in a few days. Can you be ready?"

Jackie couldn't answer at first. She was facing the wedding portrait on the wall – her and Pete, holding hands, looking into each other's eyes. Perfect.

"A blue box?"

Below that, the twins, two months old then and wrapped around each other on the blanket, curled up in that way that new babies have when they're puddled together. Sleeping, eyelids thin and joints dimpled. Perfect.

"A pair of them, yes, one here and one there. You won't understand, it'll take too long to explain, but I can bring you both back but I need you ready. I need you both there."

And Rose. Standing alone on a beach, overlooking the rocks, her hair whipping about her face. Quiet, surrounded by nothing but the expanse of empty ocean, empty beach, empty sky.

It was so obvious to her right then. It took that one word, in his voice, staring at the portraits, and Jackie understood. It was something she'd known already, but now it was there and refused to be ignored. It almost shouldn't have mattered what he said to her question next, but she was a mother first and had to know.

"Do you love her?"

"What?"

"I want to know, before you say anything else. Doctor, do you love my daughter Rose?"

There was the briefest of pauses, but his voice was clear. "Yes."

For Jackie, the sun shone that day. "I can't come with you, Doctor."

"But—"

"But I'll do everything in my power to see that Rose will."

It should have been excruciating, knowing that Rose would be going away forever. What was worse was that Jackie knew she couldn't risk telling Rose a thing beforehand; her headstrong, stupidly loyal daughter would be torn between her mother and her Doctor. And Jackie knew, had always known, that given the choice, Rose would choose the Doctor over her. Jackie elected to never bring it up, and the Doctor, after some convincing, agreed to spare Rose the torment.

"She won't forgive me for it," he said mournfully.

"There's a lot she won't forgive you for," said Jackie, very matter-of-fact. "This isn't much."

The wretch was that Jackie never knew which morning would be the last. She was careful to be as normal as could be – at least, not to be on her worst or best behavior, and to tell her daughter every morning that she loved her. Without fail. It wasn't enough that the Doctor said a phone would work, that he had the path worked out for that, at least. Jackie felt like she had to bulk up Rose's reserves, just in case something went wrong later.

(The Doctor was never quite _that_ reliable, even in his new form.)

It was four days before Mickey Smith called Jackie, voice frightened and furrowed, and the moment she heard him, she knew. It was done. Rose wasn't there anymore. In a way, there was relief mixed in with the intense, sharp sorrow, because Jackie felt that they'd all of them been simply holding their breath, waiting, and being able to fill her lungs full of air hurt so sharply that it made Jackie want to cry, and sing, and breathe again.

* * *

It was nearly five days before she heard her daughter's confused and frightened voice on the promised call. The Doctor, of course, had called her, almost immediately after Mickey, to tell her Rose was safe, but sleeping, and likely to sleep for a while. It was nearly a week before Rose called, finally, sounding tired and anxious and afraid, and Jackie was racing out the door with Pete. She cried for half an hour after the too-short call with her daughter, but ending it had been the right thing to do. Rose was in no state to talk then, not then.

It was two more days before Rose called again, and Jackie had made up her mind that Majorca was horrible. Not because it was Majorca, but because it wasn't Rose.

"Mum," her daughter said before bursting into tears.

"Oh, Rose, sweetheart. It's all right! Is this your new mobile or the Tardis?"

"My mobile," said Rose through her sobs.

"Good, I've got a lovely picture of Pete all burnt like a lobster just waiting, we'll try sending it later. Sweetie, stop crying, just for a moment, please?"

"But – Mum—"

"Shush a little, let me – there. I'm all alone, Pete can't hear. Are you alone or is the Doctor nearby?"

Her daughter sniffled, the sobs receding. "He's nearby, but he can't hear me. He promised."

"Then we have ourselves to ourselves. How long do we have?"

"I…I don't know."

"Then most important first. Rose."

"Mum?"

Jackie took a breath. She'd been thinking about this speech for days, thinking about the best way of saying it, and had even written it out on a slip of paper, which she had conveniently left in the other room where Pete was sleeping off his sunburn. It didn't matter, because though she couldn't remember a word of it anyway, she knew exactly what she wanted to say, most important first.

"I love you, Rose. Pete loves you. Mickey loves you. The twins love you. We want you to be happy. And Rose, my own, you haven't been happy here."

"Mum, that's not—"

"Hush. I know you too well. I watched you grow up, you and me, Rose. Just you and me. You're my daughter and I will always love you and miss you and when the phone rings I will always answer it because it will be you ringing. There will never be a day I don't think about you and wish you were here and wish I could put my arms around you and hold you again. But this world isn't right for you, Rose. It never was. As much as I wish it weren't true, you don't belong here – because it's not just you and me anymore, Rose."

"Mum…." The pain in Rose's voice was unmistakable, and Jackie heard it and felt her heart was breaking, but kept going anyway.

"Just a bit more, sweetheart. It's not me and you, Rose. It's you and the Doctor. That's your pair, Rose. You and him."

"I know that," said Rose through the sobs. "Don't you think I know that? I've always known that. But…I'm never going to see you again."

"Oh, sweetheart," said Jackie, and let her daughter cry, until the connection broke away into static.

* * *

Gradually, it got better. Rose called, and did not cry. She sent photographs of herself on every planet, in every outfit, sometimes with the Doctor, sometimes without. Once in a while, she sent a photograph so stunningly beautiful, of nothing at all, that Jackie would ask Pete – who was much more technologically inclined – to print it out for her, and she would frame it and put it somewhere she could see. She would pass the photograph and think, "There, that's what Rose saw today."

It helped, because she missed her daughter more than she let on. It was a slow ache, and for the first year, after the static took over the line, she would sit for hours and cry.

There were things she considered not telling Rose, and had Mickey not been quite so distant, she would have asked his advice. She didn't tell Rose when Pete had double pneumonia and they were afraid he wouldn't make it. She didn't tell Rose when Rita-Anne fell down the steps and broke her hip. She didn't tell when Molly was hospitalized with the flu. She didn't want Rose to think there was any possibility that she was needed to complete a pair.

She didn't want Rose to feel the slightest bit of guilt for having not been able to make her own choice.

And it was just as well. Pete and Rita-Anne and Molly recovered. Mickey was doing well, and even Jackie felt happier than she had in years. Everything was working, and every time Rose called, more full of joy than she had before, Jackie knew she had done the right thing.

One day, four years after Rose had left, the phone rang. The day had started out overcast and rain in the north, the radio a mess of static, the zeppelins hanging too low. The phone rang in the annoying way phones have when you can't find them and you've got pins in your hair, and Jackie found it on the landing and thought about cursing whoever was on the other end.

It was Mickey Smith. "Jackie," he said, his voice broken and afraid, and Jackie wondered what the problem could be.


	7. Blood

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ The blue custard wasn't quite as benign as they originally thought._

* * *

**Chapter Seven: Blood**

They had gone to Barcelona, by way of Fespa, by way of 1492, by way of New California, and Rose remembered what it was like to lose track of time when time no longer acts as measurement. She thought it might have been two months, and then her mother mentioned the twins' first birthday as old news.

Rose waited until after the call dissolved into static – neither was ever willing to hang up – and then she went looking for the Doctor in the console room, where he'd climbed up high on one of the support beams to work on the circuitry above. "Time moves differently," he said absently as he concentrated, and Rose remembered he'd said it before, when she was still lost in the blue haze of newly discovered kisses.

"Only – to Mum, I've been gone nine months, and I'm fairly sure it's two."

"Oh, not that long – it's only been six weeks, really," said the Doctor, and he glanced down at her, almost amused. "You can't be tired of me already? Time dragging along?"

"No! But it's hard to keep track."

He hopped down from the support beam and lifted her eyelid, pointing the sonic screwdriver into her iris. She didn't protest – this routine had grown old weeks ago as he'd watched for the blue residual evidence of her journey slowly wash out of her system.

"Well, that's not the problem – you're completely free of blue custard," he pronounced. "But you've been free of it for weeks, I wouldn't think it'd pop up again. If you want, we could find you a good earth watch so you can keep track of earth time."

"It wouldn't work unless I kept a calendar with it, though, or had one of those awful calculator things. I'd rather have something pretty."

"Oh, we can do that, easy enough, just go ahead a bit. But—"

"I don't mind going to Earth again," she said, knowing why he hesitated.

"You don't have to leave the Tardis. I could find you something appropriate."

Rose couldn't help but be mildly annoyed. "Stop wrapping me in cotton wool, Doctor. I've saved your life twice now, you think you'd know I'm capable of taking care of myself."

"That you did. Hop up, then, straight to the 27th century, Lausanne – fantastic calendar watches then, quite handsome too – and then London, if you need anything?"

She nodded, and fell into the rhythm of running the Tardis through the Vortex. There was a balance to it, a sort of dance, and it was one of the things Rose loved most about being back, the ebb and flow as they ran circles around each other. Speech had ceased to become necessary after a few weeks, other than quick one-word commands, equally given and received by both. The Doctor noticed, and had remarked that whatever Rose had done at Torchwood, it certainly had been to her benefit.

They arrived at Earth all too soon, and the Doctor, who usually let Rose go first when on her home planet, waited for her to move to the doors.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked.

"Oh, after you."

She went to him and grasped his hand, squeezing it gently. "You with me." She thought he might have inspected her briefly before he nodded, and together they stepped out into the alley.

Lausanne was lovely. The watches were better, metal and slim, with delicate filigree on the edges, and intricate designs on the back. They were small and light, and until the shopkeeper patiently demonstrated how the faces responded to touches on all exterior points, Rose had no idea how such a complicated instrument could be so small. There were different faces swirling into place for every function, and there were more functions than Rose thought she would ever use – not quite as many as the sonic screwdriver, but in the end, just as useful.

"It looks lovely on your arm," said the shopkeeper, who admittedly had been flirting shamelessly with her. "Made for you, my gem, a curse on me should I try to remove it from your arm."

"But—" She looked at the Doctor. The watch, she'd seen from the tag, was white and rose gold-plated platinum, and Rose knew from Pete Tyler's extravagance how much it would cost. And after another six centuries of inflation, too!

"Yours," said the Doctor, his voice gruff, though his demeanor was bored. He had spent the time wandering from case to case, flitting about and flapping his trench coat, clearly wanting to be anywhere else.

"But do you like it?"

He glanced at her, so quick she couldn't read his expression, and it was hard for her to tell anything without seeing his eyes. "Yours," he repeated, and tossed her the wallet that held the payment cards.

She kept looking at the watch as they walked back to the Tardis. The shopkeeper had set it to the correct date and time for the 27th century, which of course the Doctor would alter later, but Rose couldn't help but look at the different faces in turn. Time, Date, Weather, Mileage, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Body Temperature—

Rose frowned. "Doctor, we should go back. I think it's broken."

"Already?"

"It says my body temperature is 28 degrees Celsius."

"Not everyone has an average temperature on the mark, Rose. That's why it's called _average_."

"But _nine_ degrees below normal?"

He stopped and picked up her arm, scrutinizing the watch. Their skin didn't stick together anymore, not since the blue custard had finally worked its way out of her system, but she noticed that his fingers didn't feel so cold, either.

"Poor circulation?" he said to himself, and Rose bit her lip. "We'll check on the Tardis, and perhaps I can fix it. If we go back to the shop now, I think that man will take the opportunity to cart you off to bed."

Rose couldn't help but laugh. "Doctor! He was only flirting. And he wasn't half as obvious about it as Captain Jack."

"That doesn't make it better," the Doctor told her. He took her hand and kept walking, more briskly now, to the Tardis. "London, next stop, and if the Tardis disagrees with your watch, then perhaps _I'll_ return for a word with your friend the shopkeep."

"Cotton wool!" sang Rose as she skipped into the Tardis and hopped onto the jump seat. Little trips were one-man affairs, and she liked to watch the Doctor work. The watch wasn't working properly, that was all – and it was rather cold outside, too, perhaps that was the matter.

In short order, they were in London, just off Marylebonne High Street, and Rose felt perfectly confident until the moment her feet touched the pavement. She would have changed her mind but was determined to prove cotton wool unnecessary, and followed the Doctor out onto the street.

"To the right, Waitrose, to the left, Boots," he said. "We need to stock up the larder a bit – which would you rather do?"

"I'll run to Boots if you remember to get raspberry jam."

"Your wish is my command," he said gallantly before heading down the street, and Rose felt her stomach clench.

"But be careful what you wish for," she said before she could stop herself, and then frowned. "Stop it. Everything's fine." She scurried down the street to the Boots before she lost her nerve and ran after the Doctor to join him in the grocery.

Happily, the 27th century shops were not so different from her own. The packaging was a bit odd, but basic supplies remained the same. Shampoo, soap, razors (his and hers), shaving creams, lotions…Rose filled her basket, knowing he would complain about the inferior quality of Earth supplies, but he'd be grateful when they found themselves on a medieval planet without a bath in sight. Luxury was well and good, but Rose knew better than to count on the Doctor for regular supply runs.

She tossed a package of paracetamol into the basket, followed by a roll of gauze, turned onto the last aisle, and stopped dead in her tracks. For a minute she thought she would faint, and her head swam, but she steadied herself against the wall and tried not to think about the last time she had needed the items on the shelves nearest her – _was it true she'd been with him for six weeks?_ – and before she spent too long on the thought, grabbed the box of tampons and shoved it in the last remaining space in the basket.

Laden with bags, she made her slow way back to the Tardis. It wasn't far, but her mind swirled, thinking. It was ridiculous. The single most obvious reason why she hadn't needed that box in the last six weeks would be that she was pregnant, which, unless she completely misunderstood Time Lord physiology, was impossible. She and the Doctor hadn't done anything more than kissing, and even that had been fully clothed. And if she wanted to think back further to before the blue custard, it was _still_ impossible, because there hadn't been anyone then either. Pregnant wasn't it.

Rose reached the Tardis, never more grateful in her life to see it. The key was warm against her skin, where it hung on a chain around her neck, and she pulled it out, fumbling with it as she laid it against the lock. She went straight to her room, where she up-ended the purchases on her bed and one by one put them away, before gathering the bits that belonged to the Doctor and heading into the corridor, where she ran headfirst into the man himself, blocking her path.

"Rose!" he said, almost angry. "I was worried, I didn't think you'd come back so quick, and I couldn't find you outside – Rose? You're pale, what's wrong?"

She looked up at him, arms full of soaps and gels and razors, her eyes wide with fright. "Doctor—" She nearly fell over, and he grabbed her arms to hold her upright.

"Rose? What's wrong? Talk to me, Rose? Who did this to you?"

She almost laughed. "I think I need a doctor." And finally fainted in his arms.

* * *

She woke up and found herself in the medical bay, covered with a blanket and mercifully fully clothed, save for her shoes. (Although why she thought _merciful_ she never knew.) The Doctor was next to the bed, but instead of hovering over her, he hunched over a terminal, the black-rimmed glasses on his nose, barely covering the deep creases between his eyes as he scanned the screen. She didn't think she had made any noise as she woke, but he still started and turned to her as if she'd spoken, and his face broke into a smile.

"I never realized what a horribly corny line that is," he remarked. "I don't know how you fell for it. Of course, you fainted when I said it, too."

"I seem to be fainting a lot recently."

"You are. When you'd arrived, I didn't think much of it. Hard journey, shock, what-all. On Barcelona – well, dogs with no noses are rather startling no matter how many times you've heard it, and perhaps fainting when you're done running for your life is to be expected, but after purchasing shampoo? Must have been quite the discount, Rose."

She giggled and sat up a bit so she could see him better. "I felt faint in the shop, too, but – I held out. And I felt perfectly well before."

"Did not," he said absently, turning back to the screen. "I've seen you when you think I'm not looking – your muscles are still sore, aren't they? And I can't think of the last time you wore something that wasn't long-sleeved, you've been cold, haven't you? I know you weren't fond of coming to London. Should have gone to Cardiff or Coventry or – well, that's odd."

"What's odd about Coventry?"

"Oh, nothing odd with Coventry, Coventry's right as rain."

"Then what are you looking at?"

"Bit of your blood. Took advantage of you being out cold and took a sample. How very odd indeed."

Rose tried not to be annoyed that he'd taken her blood while she was passed out. "Doctor, tell me!"

He didn't even look at her, he just reached over and popped a thermometer in her mouth. "You're awake, you won't choke on that, so be a good lass now, under the tongue."

Rose crossed her arms and frowned. Leave it to the Doctor to have an all-singing, all-dancing medical bay, all except an old mercury thermometer which would take three minutes to mark her temperature. Of course, it was three minutes in which she couldn't talk, so Rose had no doubt he'd planned it exactly that way. Without a doubt, he would need precisely three minutes to finish whatever it was he was doing as he typed furiously at the terminal, the crease in his brow growing deeper by the moment.

At the end of the three minutes, the Doctor tapped a button with a satisfied nod, and took the thermometer out of her mouth to read.

"What does it say?"

He didn't answer, and tapped it against his hand, thoughtful. Dropping the thermometer by the sink for later washing, he went straight to the microscope and peered in.

"Aha."

Rose sighed and waited.

"Well."

Rose pushed the sheet back, and carefully swung her legs off the bed.

"A little more magnification…."

She slipped off the bed and stood for a moment, resting against it, and wondered why she felt so horribly weak all of a sudden.

"Doctor—"

"Just a minute, Rose."

She fell to the ground with a clatter as she pulled the entire contents of the medical tray with her.

* * *

"This is getting ridiculous," said Rose irritably when she woke next. This time, however, she was in her own bed, the covers pulled snugly around her. The Doctor sat beside her, resting against the headboard as he read. He grinned and dropped the book to his lap when she woke.

"Oh, hello, you're awake."

"How long was I out?"

"An hour, but only because once you fainted, I injected you with a bit of sleeping solution. Should have kept you out longer than that, but no matter. I believe I know what is going on with your fainting, and your temperature, and your blood pressure."

"My blood pressure?"

"That too."

Rose pulled at the threads on the quilt. "I think – there's more to it than fainting and temperature, Doctor. I – ah – could you not look at me for a moment?"

"Why not?"

"I'd rather not say this if you're looking at me, that's all."

Confused, he closed his eyes. "All right. Speak."

"There isn't – I mean – Time Lords don't – ah – I mean—"

"Out with it, Rose."

"I haven't had a period since I boarded the Tardis, and I haven't slept with anyone for seven years, so unless there's something about how Time Lords reproduce that you're not telling me, you might want to take that into account." Feeling more embarrassed than she really had excuse to feel, she ducked her head under the covers and waited.

The Doctor, thankfully, did not move. Rose didn't think she could bear it if he had jumped off the bed and gone running, or if he had fallen and hugged her in joy. Stillness was much preferred.

"Ah," he said. If Rose hadn't been heartsick, she would have been impressed with herself for rendering him silent.

"I didn't think of it until I was in Boots," she said miserably. "I really truly didn't, you know how timeless it can be. By all accounts, I should have had it twice over."

"That's all right, Rose," said the Doctor, and she knew she'd given him enough information to go on, judging from the way his voice was oddly high.

"But…Time Lords don't…I mean…."

"I can't impregnate you by kissing, Rose."

She exhaled loudly.

"It doesn't exactly change my analysis. But I suppose it's good to – ah – know. At least it gives us another barometer by which to measure. Rose, come out from under the covers, please."

"No."

"You do know the quilt is cotton wool, don't you?"

Rose popped her head out and saw him still sitting next to her, the book on his lap.

"What's wrong with me?"

"I have a theory, but it'll only remain a theory, because we don't have any of the blue custard left, and I would need to test that as well. But I think the custard, when it was in your system, might have affected more than your emotions. I think it might have done a number on your physiology as well. Your internal temperature _is_ lower, Rose, the watch is correct. Your heart rate is increasing as well – a human heart beats 72 times a minute. Yours is beating 105 at rest. The reason you're fainting is because your blood pressure has remained the same – when by all measurements, it ought to be higher. Your body apparently thinks it's too low, and thus, you faint."

She frowned. "But…that doesn't make sense. I _feel_ fine. Except for the fainting. But the rest of the time, I don't feel any different than I did before."

"Well, it's been six weeks. I imagine the changes have been occurring slowly over time, so you might not have noticed them. We can monitor them now, watch the rate of acceleration of your alterations."

"And what will that tell us?"

"When you'll stop, of course. And perhaps what will happen when you do. But there's another thing, Rose, and this is very likely tied to – what you told me just now. It's to do with the blood sample I took from you."

Rose swallowed. "It's different, isn't it? It's not normal."

He sighed. "No, Rose, not exactly that. It's not normal – for you. But – I think it might become normal – for _me_."

She stared at him. "This is turning into a very horrible science fiction nightmare. Please tell me I'm not turning into you?"

"No, I rather doubt that," he said, his mouth almost quirking. "You yourself aren't changing, just the way your insides work. If you were turning into me – well, I think the changes would be just as _external_ rather than solely _internal_."

She thought for a moment. "It was the blue custard, wasn't it? Something about the blue custard got into my system, and decided that however my insides worked, it wasn't quite right, and so it started working to fix it all."

He bounced a bit on the bed. "Oh, very good. You've caught on now."

It came to her in a flash. "Doctor!" Rose sat up suddenly, and the rush of blood nearly made her keel over again, but he grasped her shoulders and held her upright. "The nanogenes, do you remember the nanogenes? How they fixed the little boy, recognized the DNA from his mother and copied it? Do you think the blue custard worked the same way, saw me as broken and you as the dominant DNA?"

The Doctor stopped bouncing and stared at Rose in shock. "You thought of that yourself? Just now?"

She nodded, wondering if she'd perhaps made a leap too large, but then his face broke out in a silly grin.

"Took me twice as long to think of that," he said, enormously pleased. "My clever Rose! Right in one, you are." He leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the lips, more a smack than anything else, but he was so pleased she didn't care. She began to grin too.

"How do we prove it? Other than finding the blue box, which doesn't strike me as terribly fun. Could we find some nanogenes?"

He began bouncing again. "I can do you one better. We're going to find Captain Jack."


	8. 1941

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ Captain Jack gets the surprise of his life, Rose gets the kiss of her life, and the Doctor gets the shock of his life. Or perhaps it's all just déjà vu.  
**A/N:** Apologies for the delay; thunderstorms are evil. But we should be in the clear now._

* * *

**Chapter Eight: 1941**

Captain Jack Harkness was king of his castle, lord of his manor, master of his domain, but more importantly, he was under the bed attempting to find his missing black shoe.

This was not, generally speaking, his usual occupation. Usually he knew exactly where his shoes were, but then, he didn't usually get to come home at night with a pair of twins from the Delta Cluster. The twins had long since gone home – Yorkshire, incidentally, not the Delta Cluster – and Jack was left to reassemble his wardrobe so that he could get to work on time.

Well, reasonably on time.

Well, within a few hours of on time.

Perhaps by lunch.

He had just managed to find the shoe, hidden underneath a – _good lord, did they leave that here?_ – when the _whoosh whoosh_ sound from the living room startled him into attempting to sit up, which is never a good idea when one is still crawling under the bed.

So when the Doctor stepped out into Jack's Cardiff flat, Rose peeking out from behind him, they were both greeted with a string of profanity so descriptive that the Doctor shoved Rose right back into the Tardis and held the doors closed.

Jack came into the outer room, rubbing his head. "Every time you show up, something bad happens."

"Oh, you know me, death and destruction all around," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Got any nanogenes tucked away?"

"No, why?"

"Oh, no reason, no reason. Know where I could find some?"

"Chula home world, probably. Good luck getting them, though. I don't think they exactly hand them out like candy to whoever's passing by. What do you want with nanogenes?"

"Nothing in particular. I thought you might have kept some around, you know, for handy emergencies and the like."

"I haven't had nanogenes since you blew my ship up in 1941," said Jack. Something behind the Doctor distracted him – the door was pulsating, as though someone was behind it, attempting to pull it open. It barely budged, thwarted by the Doctor holding it firmly closed.

"Oh, now, I'm not the one who blew up your ship."

"No, it was you guilting me into blowing my ship up, which amounts to the same thing. Who's in the Tardis?"

"What makes you think someone's in the Tardis?"

"The fact that you're holding the door closed, and someone obviously wants to get out. Doctor, if she's pretty, you have to share."

The Doctor grinned. "No."

There was shout from inside the Tardis then. "Oi!"

The voice was familiar, and Jack froze. He knew that voice, and what's more, he knew what had happened to its owner. The only way the owner of that voice could be in the Tardis was if she and the Doctor had jumped time lines, in which case he didn't _dare_ react the way he really wanted to react when he saw her again. "Doctor," he said slowly, trying to keep calm so that no one would think something would go wrong in anyone's future, "when are you?"

"Oh, same as I ever was. I hear Martha's working for you now, hope she's treating you well? You haven't tried to seduce her yet, have you?" The door vibrated even harder, and finally the Doctor fell backwards as it was wrenched open. Before Jack even had a chance to recognize her, Rose had wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug.

"_Rose_."

His arms went around her; his head buried itself in her shoulder. This wasn't real – it couldn't really be her, could it?

"I – what are you doing here? But—" He looked over Rose's head to see the Doctor picking himself back up again, grinning. "You said Martha. You're not jumping time lines. And Rose is here."

"Oh, very long story, that is, but in the end you're right," explained the Doctor. "We aren't jumping time lines, you're safe to say everything you know. Well, maybe not everything, Rose is five years older than you'll remember her but she's still a set of tender young ears compared to you and me."

"Oh, I can have tender ears and not be pretty?" accused Rose, and Jack thought she might have been sniffling.

"I didn't say you weren't pretty, I said I wouldn't share."

"Not what it sounded like to _me_."

"You know the Tardis doesn't conduct sound very well."

"Excuse me," interrupted Jack. "If you don't mind—" He let go of Rose and without further ado, gave her his Jack Harkness Kiss (patent pending). He'd kissed her before, sure, but he'd had several hundred years since then to practice, and he'd learned a lot since seeing Rose last. It was very obvious to Jack within the first minute that Rose might have been kissed recently, but Jack's patent was pending for a very good reason indeed.

"I hate to be the iceberg," said the Doctor dryly, "but about those nanogenes?"

Jack let Rose go, and she immediately sat down hard on the nearest surface, which happened to be the coffee table. He glanced at her, grinning, before turning a lazy gaze back at the Doctor. "I told you, I don't have any, haven't since 1941."

"He kissed me," said Rose, blinking.

"Yes, love," said the Doctor to her, and then turned back to Jack. "She's more useful when she's lucid, you know."

"I missed her."

"So did I, but at least I said hello before I kissed her senseless," said the Doctor.

Jack ran his hand through his hair. "_You_ kissed her?"

"Doctor," said Rose urgently. "He _kissed_ me."

"Hush, Rose, the kiss couldn't have been _that_ good," snapped the Doctor.

"Yes, it was," said Rose and Jack simultaneously.

The Doctor glared at Jack. "Next time, ask permission."

"Whose permission am I asking?"

"Mine, of course. Well, if the last time you had nanogenes was 1941, I suppose we'll be off. Up you go, Rose." He reached down and took her hands, pulling her to still unsteady feet. "Nice seeing you, Jack. Don't kiss my Rose again unless you want to go down with the ship."

"I don't think I can stand yet," said Rose, and fell back to sit on the table again.

"Wait a minute," said Jack. "You show up with Rose, and no explanation how you show up with Rose, and tell me that you're not crossing timelines, and no explanation how you can show up with Rose and not cross timelines. And then you ask for _nanogenes_, of all things, despite the fact that I can't see a scratch on either of you, and now you're off to 1941 without so much as a goodbye kiss and you honestly think that I didn't put security devices on that ship so that renegade Time Agents couldn't sneak aboard without my knowing it?"

The Doctor looked down at Rose, who was gently swaying back and forth on the table, and then looked at Jack. "How did you do that without breathing?"

"I'm talented."

"I suppose that security device means you're coming with us?"

"I think it does," said Jack. "Can I find my other shoe first?"

* * *

It was just like Rose remembered it; dark and cold, and a thick fog of fear hanging low to the ground. She hadn't known it the first time around, but it was most likely the most frightening situation she and the Doctor had ever been in. The one that still gave her nightmares – even after Canary Wharf. She couldn't help but shiver, and crouched close to the Doctor from their vantage point on the far side of the crash, as far away from the hospital as possible, where the zombies hadn't gone.

They had perhaps fifteen minutes before the original Doctor, Rose and Jack showed up in the Chula ship, and her Doctor had every intention of making sure they all knew exactly what to do and when to do it. The only problem was it was incredibly difficult to follow, because the Doctor made no attempt to discern which set of Doctor/Rose/Jack he was discussing at any time..

"Jack, the minute we're clear of the ship, you and I will get to the ship and put in the codes. We board, we find the nanogenes, we collect them, we get off the ship. If we're very lucky, we'll be able to do most of this while Rose and I are getting Nancy out of the shed – Jack, you don't look back at the ship when we're doing that, do you?"

"I was with you, as I recall."

"Good. Rose, you're going to play lookout. If you see us coming back to the ship, you holler."

"Which us?" asked Rose, confused.

The Doctor sighed, just a little impatient. "The other us. The first us. As soon as Jack and I leave the Chula ship, we three get back to the Tardis and we're gone before any of us see ourselves. I don't have to remind anyone how bad it will be if we see ourselves, do I?"

"We blink out of existence," said Jack. "I don't know about you, but I like existence."

The men looked at Rose, who didn't say anything just yet. Her knees were still wobbly, but she wasn't sure if it was the after-affects of Jack's kiss (_and oh goodness, that kiss_), or the fear permeating from the ground, or just her own nerves. The Doctor took her hand and squeezed it gently, and she smiled at him. His hand was cool, but not quite as cool as she remembered it being. It ought to have frightened her, that her body was changing, but holding his hand gave her hope.

"What I don't understand," said Jack, "is why we have to do this _now_. Two hours ago, you two haven't even arrived in 1941 yet, and I'm busy with the squadron. Plenty of time and no chance of running into anyone remotely familiar."

The Doctor didn't even glance at him; his focus was squarely on the hospital ship in the center of the yard. "The nanogenes need to have some knowledge of Rose's biology as well as mine if they're going to diagnose the problem correctly. If we take a sampling of them from two hours ago, they won't have that information stored in their memories. We need to access them _after_ they've already repaired our hands. And I didn't leave your ship until now."

"You've regenerated since then," Jack pointed out.

"Shouldn't matter," said the Doctor flatly.

"Still enough for them to go by?" asked Jack dryly.

"It has to be," said Rose, low, and Jack gave her an odd look.

"Rose," he began, but the Doctor cut him off.

"Later. We have – ten minutes. No, less. Eight. Count on eight. Jack, the nanogenes won't come out unless the bulkhead is locked, but we have to contain some of them without doing that so that I can run the tests in a safer area. Do you know where the nanogenes stay when the bulkhead isn't locked?"

"Yes, but it's hard to explain."

"Just as well, you'll be with me to get into the ship anyway. Rose, when the zombies breach the fence line, that's when Jack and I have to get out of the ship, because otherwise we'll be trapped there when he transports himself back into it."

"But if I shout—"

"It's an air raid, no one will think anything of it. Time is critical. In, out, done."

Rose swallowed, and he smiled at her.

"We'll be fine," he said, his face breaking into a grin.

"There it is," said Jack, watching the sky, and sure enough, there was the Chula ship, and the three of them jumping out.

Rose stared, her horror breaking her out of the fear. "Oh, look at my _hair_."

The Doctor was equally horrified. "My ears have the wingspan of an ostrich!"

"I really ought to find another uniform to wear," mused Jack. The other two looked at him, and he shrugged.

"Allons-y," said the Doctor. "Eight minutes."

They ran, keeping low to the ground. Jack slid on the mud as he reached the ship, but pulled himself up to start the sequence of buttons to would open the hatch. Rose found herself watching both Jack and the Doctor at the Chula ship, as well as the three of them with the soldier by the trains. She was momentarily distracted as the Doctor and Jack finally accessed the ship's interior, and by the time she turned back to their original selves by the trains, she was in time to see the soldier's face disappear, replaced by a gas mask.

Rose felt the fear return at the pit of her stomach, and horrified, began reliving the evening from the start. It shouldn't have been so terrifying, really. It had been after the Dalek, after the Gelth, and after she'd nearly destroyed the world by saving her father's life. The sirens went off in the distance, but Rose was lost in thought now. Maybe, she mused, watching as she and the Doctor ran to the shed to find Nancy, it was because this was how they met Jack. It was the last time she was alone with her Doctor – her first Doctor – before he changed. The beginning of the end, in a way; the slow slide into the inevitable five years she lived without him.

She watched as she and the Doctor, now joined by Nancy, ran out of the shed and towards the crash site. Oh, she remembered this part. She told Nancy that they'd win the war. It had given the girl the strength to tell her son the truth. Rose always wondered what became of Nancy. There hadn't been a Nancy in the parallel world, but now that she was in this world, perhaps she could find out. Everything had turned out all right in the end. Everybody lived.

Rose watched, counting the seconds, and waited.

* * *

The ship had more headroom than the Doctor remembered it, or perhaps he was just shorter. Either way, Jack was having a devil of a time accessing the nanogenes. They resided in the crevices of the walls, in joints and crannies, and it was incredibly difficult to coax them out. It seemed to take hours before the Doctor had managed to get a fairly reliable stream into the beaker he'd brought with him for that purpose.

"Go see what's happening," he said brusquely once the nanogenes were spilling into the beaker. Jack poked his head out of the ship and was back in a minute.

"We're all at the crash site. Two minutes, maybe."

"Bloody hell," swore the Doctor. "Get out of here."

"But—"

"You won't recognize me, but you're sure to recognize you," he snapped. "I'll be there in a minute, I need more of these nanogenes."

Jack ran out of the ship.

The Doctor tried to coax the nanogenes to move faster, but they were sluggish. Maybe they knew their ship was doomed? The sirens continued to blare, and he could hear the bombs falling around them. Even though he knew the bomb that fell on them wouldn't be for another four or five minutes, he still jumped with each explosion. He thought he could hear the people screaming beneath them for help—

Screaming.

Rose.

He stoppered the beaker and shoved it in his pocket, stumbling out of the ship and falling onto the ground below. He picked himself up and began to run, and before he'd even really cleared the ship, he could hear it starting up above him and taking flight—

Jack – and seven minutes twenty-four seconds, not a full eight. At least he hadn't counted on ten.

He had just cleared the edge of the ship when the sonic wave hit him, and sent him flying. He tried to turn in midair, but it was no use; the beaker flew out of his pocket, but did not shatter, being made of stronger stuff than mere glass. It rolled down the hill and toward the crash site, coming to rest by the Chula ambulance itself.

The Doctor was utterly and completely frozen where he lay. The only reason he moved was because two pairs of arms were instantly on either side of him, pulling him up and over to the concealed safety of the tarps and boxes to the side. Even then, he couldn't turn his shocked face away from the site of the beaker resting there, nanogenes faintly glowing inside. He'd failed. He'd succeeded, and then failed. He felt Rose wrap her arms around him, resting her head against his chest, but he was too shocked to respond. Jack did the same on the other side, and he was too shocked to push him away. In stunned silence, the three of them watched as the zombies grew closer, and closer.

Rose had forgotten that Jack had never seen what happened next. There had been something special watching it the first time, when Nancy and Jamie had been surrounded by the nanogenes, golden globes of light sparking around them, through them, in them. She heard him gasp now, watching, and she felt the tears running down her face when the Doctor ran up to them and pulled the mask off Jamie's face.

"How," whispered Jack, completely shocked, and they watched the Doctor spin Jamie around, shouting in glee.

"I'd never seen you so happy," whispered Rose.

"That's not happy," said the Doctor. "That's ecstasy. That's love. I hadn't felt that, not like that, since Gallifrey."

She pressed her head against his chest. "It doesn't matter," she whispered into his coat. "We'll wait it out. I'll be all right."

But the Doctor straightened. "Rose," he said suddenly, his voice urgent. "Rose – look. _Look_."

She opened her eyes and looked. The Doctor had put Jamie down, and was surrounded himself by golden nanogenes. With a great shout, he thrust the globes at the zombies on the far end, and Rose gasped just a bit, realizing what had made her Doctor gasp.

"I'll go," said Jack, and he was off, racing behind the fencing, and they could just barely see him behind the people, carefully urging the nanogenes into the extra flask he'd carried. It only took seconds before it was full to glowing, and he slipped back just as the other Rose and Doctor left the hospital ship to talk to Nancy and the elderly doctor.

"My turn," said the Doctor suddenly to Rose, and he was gone too, slipping carefully down the far end of the crater, where he was masked by the ship, and he plucked the first beaker of nanogenes from the wreckage and scrambled up to Rose again before anyone noticed. None of them said a word until they'd managed to put half a mile between themselves and the wreckage.

"Make my effort moot," said Jack, nodding at the beaker in the Doctor's hands, only mildly put out, but the Doctor shook his head.

"No, we need them both. Yours have my makeup and the full DNA for humans, but mine have Rose."

"Yours has you, too," she said, taking his free hand.

He glanced at her and grinned. "I'm not taking any chances."


	9. Repairs

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ In which nothing is answered but everything is fixed._

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Repairs**

Rose sat on the cot in the medical bay, watching the Doctor and Captain Jack hunched over the beaker and the flask, both of which glowed with nanogenes. They were speaking low enough that she couldn't hear them, but she knew perfectly well that they were discussing the safest and best method of unleashing them on her.

Also, Jack was wondering if they would be at all useful in helping him resolve – well, Rose didn't particularly want to know, and pretended not to hear it.

She swung her legs, wondering idly when they would finish and just let the pretty golden globes out, and what would happen when they were done doing whatever it was they would do to her. Would they slide themselves into the crevices of the Tardis's med bay, ready to pop out when a new patient came in? Was it safe to use them in the Tardis at all, for that matter?

There was a niggling little tickle at the back of her head, a sort of low hummy chuckle, and Rose half wondered if it wasn't the Tardis. Which was truly ridiculous, and she laid down on the cot, her head suddenly aching.

The Doctor glanced up at her. "Rose?"

"I'm fine, just tired."

He nodded and turned back to Jack. The Doctor and Captain Jack – Rose mused that it sounded like the title of a really horrible 1970s action show. Two men, racing through time, getting into scrapes, falling into love, leaving the women behind because neither would ever settle down. It sounded awfully familiar. A girl in every century – except Rose couldn't see the Doctor with a girl in every century. Jack, he'd have at least two, and a few men besides.

Rose closed her eyes. She was tired. Her head hurt, and her chest hurt, and it had been a very long day. Seeing her first Doctor again had been odd, to say the least. She'd fallen in love with him, but it wasn't the same sort of love. He'd been more like a father-figure to her, she knew that now. She'd saved him, just like she'd tried to save Peter Tyler, and just like with Peter Tyler, she couldn't keep him.

Her Doctor, her _now_ Doctor, that was different. He was a chum, a friend, a brother. Well, not a brother. He was her second half, at the end of the day, and she couldn't imagine life without him. She hadn't felt complete, in that other world. Her mum was right – she didn't belong there, not without him.

"Rose?"

She opened her eyes. Her men were looking at her, the Doctor just a bit more anxiously, and she smiled.

"Is it ready?"

"I think so. We – we don't have to do this, Rose. We can just wait a little while, keep monitoring your vitals, see what happens."

"No, I—" Rose pushed herself up, and gasped a little as her heart gave a peculiar thud. "I don't feel well. If releasing the nanogenes means I'll feel better sooner, I'd rather just jump right in."

The Doctor reached over and touched her cheek, running his thumb along her skin. "Rose," he said softly. "I don't know what will happen to you."

She smiled. "I do. I'm going to be better." She reached up and laid her hand over his. "Stay next to me, please?"

He eased himself onto the cot beside her. "Anything you want."

"If you don't mind," said Jack patiently. "Rose? Last words?"

"Not funny, Jack," said the Doctor, without taking his eyes off Rose.

But Rose smiled. "_Did_ you seduce Martha yet?"

"Oh, give me time," said Jack airily, and opened the flask and the beaker in the same motion.

The nanogenes flew up into the air, commingling into a large golden cloud, sparking like small fireworks. They hovered for a moment, before zinging straight to Rose and surrounding her, save for two or three who lingered behind. Rose clutched at the Doctor's hand, almost afraid to keep her eyes open, but she desperately wanted to see what happened next. The nanogenes didn't touch her – didn't come within a few inches of her, really. They seemed to be waiting for some sort of instructions.

Then the few nanogenes which hadn't kept to the cloud flew over, but they didn't join the globes encircling Rose – instead, they flew to the Doctor, and orbited around his head like a halo before whisking into the main fray, and pulling the circle wider to encompass both of them.

Rose watched, fascinated, as the nanogenes spread themselves out, somehow expanding their few numbers into a complete golden web around the two of them. The Doctor's hand grew tighter in hers, and she knew he was equally fascinated – and not a little worried about why he was suddenly being included as well.

The web pulsed for a moment, as if it was assessing them, determining its next move – and then contracted on them both, descending upon their skin, almost absorbing into their bodies. Rose cried out, and heard the Doctor gasp in shock. It wasn't that it _hurt_, but it felt like every piece of her had suddenly _stopped_, as if frozen in time. She could feel pieces inside of herself rearranging, twisting, shaking themselves loose. Her muscles, which really had never stopped aching, suddenly grew relaxed and languid, and the blood that had been quicksilver in her veins was no longer burning as it went from fingers to heart to toes. Her lungs didn't strain any longer, and her head didn't hurt. Her mind flowed, one thought to the next, without falling into potholes or having to jump over cracks. And her heart, which had been thumping so curiously for the last few hours – it thumped curiously now, too, but in an easy, comfortable way, like it had been doing so all its life.

Life began again, time continued onwards, and Rose saw the web of nanogenes lift off of them both, expanding around them, and flying to the corners of the medical bay before disappearing into the walls.

"My God," breathed Jack.

Rose took a breath, feeling more relaxed and quiet than she'd felt in weeks. It took her a moment to realize the Doctor's hand was still in hers. She squeezed it, gently, surprised that it no longer felt cold.

"You didn't tell me it was both of you," said Jack, and Rose frowned.

"Both of us?"

"The nanogenes – whatever it did, it did to both of you," repeated Jack, and Rose looked at the Doctor, who was staring in shock at their hands in between them.

"You aren't warm."

She frowned. "You aren't cold. Does that mean – it didn't work? I'm not fixed?"

"You're fixed, or the nanogenes wouldn't have stopped," said Jack, and he pulled two thermometers off the medical cart, and popped them both into their mouths. "Sit there."

Rose squeezed the Doctor's hand for a moment, and felt him squeeze it back. She watched as Jack took first the Doctor's pulse, and then her own. He frowned when he tested hers, and seemed to have trouble finding it.

"Stethoscope?" he asked the Doctor, who pointed to the cabinets on the far end of the room. Jack came back a few minutes later, and listened to the Doctor's hearts, first the right, then the left.

He moved to Rose. She sat up a bit straighter, and was puzzled when he rested the cool metal two inches to the right of where her heart ought to be.

Then he moved it two inches to the left. His eyes widened in disbelief, and he pulled the stethoscope from his ears, letting it rest around his neck. Quickly, he pulled their thermometers out of their mouths at the same time and compared them.

Rose couldn't wait. "Jack, what's—"

"Be quiet a minute," he snapped, his eyes taking in one thermometer and then the other. "Doctor, remind me, because I'm not clear on Time Lord physiology. Internal body temperature?"

"Fifteen degrees Celsius."

"Heart rate?"

"170 beats per minute."

"Number of hearts?"

Normally, the Doctor or Rose would have rolled their eyes, or made a quick retort, but the Doctor's voice was perfectly calm. "Two."

Jack took a breath. "Well, that's the same, at least."

"Jack," warned the Doctor.

Jack looked at him, careful to avoid Rose's gaze. "Temperature, 20 degrees Celsius. Heart rate, 160 beats per minute. Hearts, two."

He glanced at Rose.

"Both of you."


	10. Hearts

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ First there were three, now there are four._

* * *

**Chapter Ten: Hearts**

None of them spoke for a moment; the medical bay was silent, save for the low, near-chuckling hum of the Tardis. Rose thought it sounded like a chuckle, anyway, or at least very amused. She wasn't sure why – Jack looked positively dumbfounded, even though he was the one to say she was the Doctor's physiological equal. The Doctor, for his part, stared at Jack like he'd sprouted two heads, and neither of them made any indication that they would ever speak again. For her part, Rose was tired of the silence.

"I have two hearts," she said, and this seemed to wake Jack up.

"Yes."

"And he's running a fever?" She pointed at the Doctor, who was struck silent.

"I don't think so. The nanogenes wouldn't have left him with a fever. They would have left him exactly the way he ought to be when perfectly healthy."

"But I can't be perfectly healthy. You said my temperature was 20 degrees Celsius. It should be 37. And my heart is going 160 beats a minute – _and there's two of them_."

"Yes, but how do you feel?" asked Jack.

Rose thought for a moment, assessing. "Fine. I feel fine. Better than I have in weeks, really." She stretched out her arms. "Nothing hurts. I haven't really stopped hurting since I got here."

The Doctor's voice startled both of them. "I'm not too hot."

"I beg to differ," said Jack.

The Doctor ignored him. "I've been warm the last six weeks. Just a bit, not much to bother with. I thought it was just that Rose is so much warmer, usually, shared body heat and all that. But – I feel better now. Like I'm the temperature I'm supposed to be." He paused. "That doesn't make sense. I'm five degrees warmer than my body is meant to be."

"And I'm colder," said Rose slowly. "I thought the nanogenes were meant to fix us."

"I think they did," said the Doctor, and he jumped off the cot. "Jack, the terminal on the far wall – there's a scan I did of Rose three weeks ago. Find it and pull it up, would you? There's also some tests on that blue custard, I'll need to compare them for a minute – Rose, don't move off that table, love. I'm going to have to take a sample of your blood, and Jack – when you've found those scans—"

"Found them."

"Good. Pop them into the display and I need you to take a sample of my blood too."

Jack shoved the disk with Rose's scan into the projector, and after a moment, the picture appeared on the far wall. Rose didn't even notice the Doctor taking the sample of her blood, she was momentarily distracted by the near-X-ray image of herself above. Only it wasn't an X-ray – it was like looking at a picture of her body without the skin. She could see her muscles flexing a little, the blood coursing through her veins, and her heart beating.

"Doctor," she said, still mesmerized, "there's something wrong with me there."

The Doctor glanced up at it as Jack finished extracting his blood. "Well, yes. That's part of the reason I took it, remember. This was right after you fainted on Barcelona."

"No," said Rose, "look at my heart."

He did, and frowned. "It's beating. Quickly, but beating."

"It's not right."

Jack took a few steps closer. "She's right. Look – it should be beating as a whole unit, but it's not. It's beating in halves. As if it's—"

He fell silent, and the three of them watched the image quietly. It was true. Rose's single heart on the scan was beating as if it were two distinct organs, first one half, then the other.

"No wonder my chest hurt," said Rose softly.

"The blue custard," realized the Doctor, and looked at the terminal near him. He tapped a few buttons, and frowned. "It wasn't just affecting your mental capacities, Rose. It was affecting everything." He looked up at her, the worry on his face causing wrinkles which weren't normally visible. "I knew you weren't feeling particularly well at the beginning, but – you said you've been aching for weeks. Why didn't you say anything?"

"You didn't say anything, either, about being warm all the time," she retorted. "And I'll bet that's not all, either. You've been sluggish, a little, haven't you?"

"We're not talking about me."

"Maybe we should! The nanogenes went into you, too, didn't they? You might not have altered as much as I have, but you've altered! Whatever they thought was wrong with me, they apparently had the same ideas about you!"

"Rose, how long were you covered in that blue custard?" asked Jack. "Four, five days?"

"Four."

"And you, Doctor – you said you'd reached in for her. You must have had some of it on you, too."

"My hand, yeah, and the bits that rubbed off of her onto me when I carried her back into the Tardis. Was a few hours before I could wash it off properly."

"If the blue custard did this to Rose, then it stands to reason they did it to you, too," said Jack. "Rose's hypothesis was that the custard worked like the nanogenes, diagnosed the malady and then fixed it. Well, if the custard does that, wouldn't it have tried to even you both out?"

"But it didn't even us out. I changed more than he did," argued Rose.

"Because it was on you longer," said Jack.

The Doctor stared at the vials of their blood. "What does that make us, then?"

"Am I a Time Lord now?" asked Rose softly, almost afraid to hear the answer.

He glanced at her. "I don't know. But I'm not human, either." He frowned and turned back to the terminal, typing furiously. "I'm going to run diagnostics on our blood. And I have some old diagnostics from both of us, on Rose going back a few weeks and then on myself going back until the last regeneration – we can use those for comparison. Jack, I want to see a sample of your blood, too, for human comparison—"

"You sure my blood will work for that?"

"Good point, but let's see it anyway. We can ask Martha for a sample. We'll need full physicals, for both me and Rose, let's see what's really going on with our bodies, what all these changes mean."

Rose took a breath, but it was shaky. "I…I think…" She swallowed, jumped off the cot, and ran out of the room before either of them could catch her. She could hear the two of them racing after her, but she didn't stop until she'd reached the garden, and she slammed the door behind her, wishing it would just disappear. She read headlong into the trees, finding the spot beneath the grapevines where she'd had the picnic with the Doctor six weeks earlier, when she'd first arrived, and there she curled up, pulling her knees beneath her chin, closed her eyes tight, and waited for them to find her.

But the minutes went by, and neither of them came. She wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved – she had wanted to be alone for a moment, after all. Only, it wasn't like either of them to just give up.

Carefully, she put her hand over her chest, and felt her heart beating. One of her hearts. She moved her hand, and felt the secondary beat there. She looked at the watch she always wore, and pressed the right spots to check her temperature and blood pressure. Both were exactly as Jack had said.

Rose closed her eyes, breathing deep. She ought to have been reeling, but instead she felt a profound sense of calm. She inhaled again, breathing in the apple grass beneath her, the scent of the grapevines behind, and the breath stretched out into minutes, each second lasting as long as it possibly could before moving on to the next. Rose could feel each heart beating in turn, the blood in her veins no longer quicksilver but still coursing, every muscle testing its new limits and settling into repose.

She felt, rather than heard, a cool warmth envelop her where she sat, and she relaxed into it, exhaling. Dimly she wondered if this was meditation, and how she'd managed to slip into it without knowing what to do. The warmth around her tickled her a bit, like laughter, and still made no sound. Rose frowned, a bit, and wondered if the wind was laughing at her.

The breeze lifted her hair, pushing it back from her face, almost lovingly, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

Rose opened her eyes, half expecting to see either the Doctor or Jack before her, but there was no one there.

"Who's there?" she whispered, and the breeze came forth again, parting the grapevines and exposing the walls of the garden room, and then Rose understood.

She twisted, and slipped her hand between the vines, reaching until she felt the pock-marked walls of the garden behind them, and rested her fingertips there. "Hello," she said, and felt a thrum in the wall, like purring. The breeze picked up again, wrapping around her like a soft blanket, a gentle embrace, and Rose had a strong impression of – not sorrow, not pity, but concern.

"I'm all right," she whispered. "I think. Just – it's too much to take in all at once." She rested her head against the vines and sighed. "Am I – what am I now? Do you know?"

But there wasn't an answer, and Rose closed her eyes. "Is he – still – him?"

The breeze brushed her hair away from her face in a reassuring way.

Her fingers kept stroking the walls. "Where is he?"

An image then, of the Doctor and Jack both, in the corridor, pacing. It took Rose a moment to realize that they were just outside the garden – but there wasn't a door leading in. She began to giggle. "Did I do that? Perhaps we ought to let him in."

It only took a few minutes for the Doctor to find her. She could hear him racing through the trees before he appeared and fell to his knees before her, gasping. "Rose!"

She pulled her hand out of the vines, almost hearing the Tardis's discontent but knowing the ship understood, and pulled herself to her knees opposite him. "Hello."

He smiled shakily and reached for her cheek. "Hello."

She touched his cheek in response. "You'll want to run more tests."

He hesitated. "Not yet. No rush, unless you're not feeling well?"

She shook her head. "I'm all right."

"You started running – Rose, I'm sorry that we were so clinical back there."

"I don't think we need to run more tests. I mean – don't you know what happened?"

"The nanogenes did something, they went into both of us – once I've run the samples of our blood, get a better idea if it affected our DNA—"

"I'm not going to be your guinea pig," said Rose firmly. "You took a vial, and that's all you're going to get, for this, anyway. I don't need a test to tell me that I'm fine."

"Rose," said the Doctor slowly. "You grew another heart."

"I know that!"

"Your vitals have completely altered, your entire body works in a different way. You're like nothing the galaxy has ever seen before, and—" He stopped for a moment, and his eyes grew wide. "You were talking to the Tardis."

Rose stilled. "It wasn't talking. She was just…there weren't any words."

"She doesn't talk in words. You can have a conversation with a horse or a dog or a cat, and there aren't words spoken. It's the same thing." He frowned, and moved one hand as if to touch her temple, but left it hovering a few inches away. "Rose, I want to run more tests. Please – I have to understand what happened back there if—"

"Why?"

"I have to know what the nanogenes did to you," he said, and she could see that he was still sorely tempted to touch her temples. She thought she knew why.

"_Us_, you mean, it was both of us, and I know what the nanogenes did," repeated Rose. "And if you run another test on me, I'll go back to Torchwood and dig until I find the crossroads and go back."

He dropped his hand, growing pale. "Rose."

"Promise me no more tests!"

"I—"

A breeze, far stronger now, blew through them, so strong that it knocked him onto the grass. "Oi," he said, irritated, and looked back at Rose. "You've got yourself a champion, it seems."

"She only let you into the garden because I said she could. I think she likes me."

"She's always liked you," said the Doctor quietly. "Why do you think I couldn't touch your room after you left? She took away the door the moment she realized I was going to destroy it. I thought I'd never see you again, having your room on the Tardis was too painful a reminder."

Rose crept until she was next to him. "Whatever the nanogenes did," she whispered, her throat so thick it hurt, "it isn't bad. It can't be. I'm not going anywhere. I left you once before. I don't think I could do it again."

He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. "I don't know what any of this means, Rose. The nanogenes, the changes in you and in me. I don't like not knowing. It's the shades of gray of science, and I don't like gray."

"I do," said Rose. She reached up and touched his sideburns gently, running her fingers back to curl around his ears before drifting down his neck. He shivered, gasping a little at the tickling movements, and Rose's eyes sparkled as she watched his reaction. She reached up and kissed him, feeling his open lips press against hers. Her hearts pounded in fury, and Rose wondered if this was what he felt like, when he kissed her, if he felt the same rush of blood in his ears dampening all sound. Blood coursing through her arms, pushing them around his shoulder and holding him tight. The curious rolling and tightening in her abdomen, the sudden drop she felt only when on a roller coaster or when being kissed just exactly right. Rose pulled away, enough to look at him, dropping soft, undemanding kisses on his lips, the furious pounding of her hearts and the strange motions of her body making her suddenly sleepy.

"I know what it means," she whispered to him.

He didn't answer; his eyes studied her, drinking her in, and his hands were curled in her hair.

"You aren't the last of anything anymore. You and me, we're something new."

He pulled her close and rested his chin on her head. "I'm still a Time Lord – I can feel it. Still got years left in me."

"Oh, you, you'll never change that much," she said with a yawn. "But you aren't going to leave me anywhere ever again." With that, she nuzzled into him and fell asleep.


	11. Epilogue: Pathways

_**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine. It's sad, I agree.  
**Chapter Summary:**__ Everything changes, everything shifts; everything has its place in the universe. It's just that place isn't always the same._

* * *

**Epilogue: Pathways**

When Rose woke up, the Doctor was sleeping. This in itself was unusual, because in the six weeks since she'd returned to the Tardis, she had not once seen him sleep. Perhaps it had to do with the alterations in their bodies – perhaps it was simply because he was finally exhausted. Rose thought it might have been because he was comfortable in a way he had not been previously.

He looked younger, when he was asleep. If Rose looked very closely, she thought she could see bits of her other Doctor just below the surface, but she'd never seen that Doctor asleep either, so it was hard to tell. Their relationship then had been different, more father-daughter than lovers.

Not that she and he were _lovers_. But Rose had the inkling that perhaps, with the changes, they could be. It wasn't such a bad thought, but it was entirely possible that it might have frightened the poor Doctor to death. To be fair, she'd never heard _him_ proclaim distaste of all things domestic, and he'd always been more affectionate, more willing to see Jackie, friendlier to Mickey, than he'd been before Satellite 5.

Maybe he wouldn't mind.

Rose wondered if she could read his mind now. What if he could read hers? That was a horrid thought – all the images and thoughts that swirled around in there, most of which were unfit for any sort of consumption. And Rose wasn't all that certain she really wanted to know what 900 years of existence was like.

(Although, she reflected, what with her body becoming more like his, she might actually find out.)

"I don't think you'll regenerate," he mumbled, and Rose jerked at the sound of his voice. His arms were wrapped around her, and they tightened to keep her close. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—" He opened his eyes blearily. "Didn't mean to startle you. Were you awake or dreaming? Did you say that or think it?"

"I didn't really think anything," said Rose. "Not about regeneration. I was thinking I might live 900 years."

"Not how it came across. Or maybe that's just how I interpreted it. Telepathy's funny that way. It's an odd connection, not like a typical Time Lord mind in mine. I can sense you right there on the periphery, but I can't access it, exactly, I'm just getting impressions. I _didn't_ read your thoughts."

"You'd have read them wrong, if you had."

"I won't read them, either, unless you want. I _could_, I could look in your head, but I won't without your permission. I remember how upset you were that the Tardis translated for you."

"Only because you didn't ask. I would have said yes."

"Would you? I'm not so sure. Can you sense my mind?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Be quiet for a moment," he told her. "Close your eyes if you like, sometimes that helps. It's a little like imagination, pretend your mind has grown fingers and is reaching out. Pretend you're reaching towards me."

She did, feeling just a little silly, and imagined herself floating in space, reaching out like the painting on the Sistine Chapel, trying to find Adam. She was about to open her eyes again and tell him, no, she couldn't sense anything but embarrassment, when she just barely had a vision of purple mist, there, at the very edge of existence.

Her eyes flew open. "Purple?"

He grinned at her. "You expected pinstripes?"

"That would be just silly," she said, suddenly feeling enormously pleased with herself. "What color am I? And _please_ don't say I'm rose-colored."

"Now who's being silly? You're a sort of silvery-turquoise, I don't know that there's a name for it. A bit like an opal when you hold it in just the right light. Luminescent."

"So are you."

"That's a Time Lord for you."

"But you said I wasn't a Time Lord."

"No," he said thoughtfully. "I did say that, didn't I? And you aren't, because if you were, I'd know it."

"Tests," she said gloomily.

"No, no tests," he said, just as thoughtful. "You wouldn't be on the edge of my thoughts the way you are now, you'd be right in there with them. We wouldn't have to try so hard to catch each other. So you aren't Time Lord. I think – I think you might be Gallifreyan."

"Galli-whatin?"

"My home planet was Gallifrey. I never told you? No matter. Not everyone there was a Time Lord, very select, pompous group we were. Best of the best, far superior in intelligence, technology, and appearance."

"And ego."

"Just as important. But the Gallifreyans, they had their own gifts. Similar in physiology, but they didn't regenerate. I don't think you will, either."

She drummed her fingers against his chest. "Will I live 900 years? You didn't answer that question."

"If I wrap you in cotton wool, you might, but we've already determined that you won't allow it. As for an actual projection of how long you'll live – no idea. I would have to run the dreaded tests to be able to tell for certain."

"But how long does a Gallifreyan live?"

"Not 900 years, but more than plenty."

"I hate it when you're enigmatic."

"I hate it when you're clothed," he said, and time seemed to stop the moment the words left his mouth. They stared at each other, Rose and the Doctor, and Rose felt her pulse quickening, which considering its heightened state, was something.

"Doctor?" Her voice seemed high, even to her.

"I – ah – Jack will be wondering where we've gotten ourselves to," he stammered, and sat up, pulling his arms away from her, and running his fingers through his hair to flatten it, which didn't work.

"You went from me naked to _Jack_?" asked Rose incredulously.

"Rose—"

She sat up and caught his coat, and was about to speak when a wave of dizziness hit her so strongly, she let the fabric slip through her fingers as she fell back to the ground.

"Rose?"

"Dizzy," she mumbled into the grass, and screwed her eyes shut. She felt a brief pulsing at the edge of her consciousness, and had a sense of purple pushing lightly, trying to see if she was all right. "_No_, you promised."

The purple receded, and he fell to his knees next to her. "I'm sorry, you flickered. I reacted without thinking. Do you need something?"

"Maybe some water. How long were we asleep?"

There was a pause, and when he spoke, his voice was surprised. "Seven hours. Jack will think we've fallen into the water and drowned."

She opened her eyes carefully, and when the world did not spin, she opened them further. "Wait – I thought the door came back? How did you get in?"

"The door _did_ come back, went away again after I came in. Last I saw, Jack was still sitting in the corridor. He might still be there."

"Seven hours, I hope not." She carefully pushed herself up to sit. "I'm better. But seven hours – and I can't think of when last I ate – and suddenly I'm awfully hungry."

"Tea," said the Doctor. "And sandwiches." He paused. "Rose, I know you don't want me using you as a guinea pig. I promise I won't. But – I have the blood samples already. I want to run the tests at least on those, compare it to what I have already. I have to find out what happened to me, at least. Will you be all right with me doing that? As long as I don't ask you to do anything further?"

She put her hand in his. "I suppose that would be all right. I think it's like the translation – you never asked me if I would let you stick me with pins and needles, you just did it. Maybe in a few days I'll feel differently. Right now, I'm tired of being ill. Since I don't feel ill, I don't want to be treated as though I am."

He nodded, and pulled her to her feet. "All right. I won't treat you as though you're ill. Except—" She began to sway just a bit, and he instinctively held her by the waist to steady her. "Except for now. I can fetch sandwiches and tea here, if you'd like."

"No," she said. "The kitchen, at the table, and pretend everything's normal." She grew aware of his hands on her waist, slowly slipping down to her hips, and remembered his words from before. And for no reason she could discern – not then, anyway – she spoke again. "If we don't leave the garden soon, Jack will fight his way in, door or no."

His hands stilled, and she was instantly sorry. "Quite right too," he said, and smiled at her, removing his hands from her waist – hips – and offering them to her. "Ready?"

She put her hands in his. "Always."

* * *

There was one last discussion to be had, he thought over tea, while Jack cut the sandwiches and made sure Rose had one of everything. He hadn't been entirely truthful with her before, not about how long he'd been without her, or when he said he hadn't read her thoughts so clearly. It wasn't that he _had_ read them exactly, but he'd inferred more than just her concern over lifespan. He's inferred quite a bit, really, and he almost dreaded the conversation that those worries of hers foretold.

A future. Specifically, a future with him.

Time Lord that he was, he didn't think much about the future, at least not in the linear way of the humans. The future simply happened, had happened, would happen, without his worrying over it overmuch, and really, there was just as much in the past to examine. He'd find himself in his own future soon enough.

But no matter what changes in Rose the nanogenes had wrought, he didn't think she would ever lose the linear nature of seeing the world. She might be more Gallifreyan than human now, and she might have the luminescent aura of a Time Lady, but she'd never be able to have a true link with a Tardis, to control the Vortex and feel the earth turn beneath her feet. Oh, she'd probably surprise him every day for the next century, he had no doubt, but—

The next century?

Rose laughed at something Jack said, and he watched as she stole a prawn mayo from his plate. Not that Jack argued. She looked devious and childlike, and intensely happy. He tentatively felt for her silvery-turquoise, and it pulsed with…pleasure, and love, a little tired and hungry, but no longer in flux and entirely solid. He withdrew before she noticed him.

All right. The next century, then. The idea of having Rose around for the next hundred years didn't frighten him as it had done before he'd lost her. It might when they reached the end of it, but that was looking into the future, wasn't it, and that was something Time Lords didn't do. No sir – he stayed firmly rooted in the present, sitting at the kitchen table with Rose and Jack and Rose and sandwiches and Rose and tea and Rose.

There would be a conversation, he mused, when he was done with his tests and comparisons and exams. About exactly how the nanogenes had changed him, and what that meant. About how he thought the nanogenes had changed her, and what that meant.

New, she'd said. They were new.

Rose laughed again, and buried her nose in her teacup.

He didn't know what she'd think of the future. He decided he didn't care, and drank his tea anyway.

* * *

The Doctor and Rose will return

in

**One Day**

_Part Two of the Crossroads Series_


End file.
